
Gass. 
Book. 



\&BH 



OUTLINES 



OF 



ANCIENT HISTORY 



FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE FALL OF 
THE WESTERN ROMAN EMPIRE, AD. 476 



EMBRACING THE 

EGYPTIANS, CHALDsEANS, ASSYRIANS 

BABYLONIANS, HEBREWS, PH<ENICIANS, MEDES 

PERSIANS, GREEKS, AND ROMANS 



Designed for Private Reading and as a Manual of Instruction 



• ; .. BY 

P. V. N. MYERS, A.M. 

PRESIDENT OF FARMERS' COLLEGE, OHIO 

AUTHOR OF "REMAINS OF LOST EMPIRES*' AND ASSOCIATE AUTHOR OF 

"LIFE AND NATURE UNDER THE TROPICS " 



BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY GINN & COMPANY. 

1887. 






Exchange 

Augastana College Liby. 

Sept. 2S 1934 



PREFACE. 



It is a very general comprint that the Manuals of History 
put into the hands of students are dry and uninteresting. The 
complaint is not unfounded. Such introductory works are too 
often mere crowded inventories of events, and so not only fail 
of awakening an intelligent interest in what should be the most 
engaging of studies, but repel and dishearten the student. If 
this fault has been avoided, and the narrative is connected 
and interesting, still the perspective is almost sure to be false 
and misleading, and the picture of early times foreshortened 
and distorted. Usually all that lies back of Grecian annals 
is compressed into a few pages, where everything is lost — or 
rather brought into being — in a sort of creative nimbus. In- 
deed, in several works in extensive use in our schools, that 
vast background is treated as a kind of Hyperborean region, 
being filled indiscriminately with all manner of myths and 
legends, until there is no more rational connection between the 
story thus told of the men and agencies of those early times 
and the history of later periods than exists between the double 
writings of the palimpsest. One of our objects, then, in pre- 
paring the present volume is to join hands with those who are 
laboring to turn that period to use in education, and give it 
that character and prominence in the manual which it has as- 
sumed in the larger works of all our best historical scholars. 

Moreover, we conceive History to be a worthier thing than 
a trivial record of court intrigues and genealogies. So some- 
times, departing from precedent, we have devoted more space 



IV PREFACE. 

to giving an account of the growing arts, sciences, literature, 
or religion of a people than to the recital of the doings of their 
rulers. The dynastic or political annals of a nation are often 
of the least possible interest and importance. We think, and 
have acted upon the thought, that the character and work of a 
Moses, a Solon, or a Lycurgus have been far more potent ele- 
ments in the formation of the complex product we call Civiliza- 
tion, and therefore more worthy of a place in our thoughts as 
students of a growing humanity, than the petty wars and in- 
trigues of kings and emperors, w.^ose only claim upon our at- 
tention is that the accidents of history have made them titled 
personages. It is only when, through force of character or 
circumstances, they become in fact representative men that we 
have shown much concern respecting them or their doings. 

The plan of our work combines, as will be seen, the ethnolog- 
ical and chronological methods — the former, however, having 
been allowed to exert the greater influence upon the arrange- 
ment. The ethnological treatment of history has been com- 
pared to the tracing separately of each tributary of a great 
river system from its source to its union with the main stream ; 
while the chronological or synchronistic plan has been likened 
to working down all the streams at once, by constant crossing 
and recrossing from valley to valley. A close adherence to 
the latter gives a confused and fragmentary view of the sub- 
ject ; hence our preference for the former. When once upon 
an historic stream, we have followed it to its junction with the 
principal current, or to where some sub-tributary has joined it 
of such size and importance as to induce us to turn aside, in 
order to explore the sources and character of the new affluent. 
We have thus been enabled to secure a continuity and sim- 
plicity of narrative which we are sure will be appreciated by 
those who have had experience in guiding scholars amidst the 
bewildering and hopeless interlacings of synchronistically ar- 
ranged text-books. 

The division of the text into distinctly marked paragraphs 



PREFACE. V 

will be found, we think, to add very much to the value of the 
book as a manual of instruction. Under each sub -head is 
placed as much matter as naturally gathers there, so that, when 
any particular passage has been once carefully read, the head- 
ing will afterwards recall the contents of the entire paragraph. 
We have avoided the extensive use of foot-notes, being con- 
vinced that any matter which it is desirable to bring to the 
notice of the student should be incorporated with the text, 
where it may meet the eye without the attention being drawn 
from the narrative. References to authorities which it was our 
first intention to insert in place we have been led to omit, both 
on account of the growing size of the book and also because 
of the conviction that to the great majority of the readers of 
such a general sketch they could be of no real value; there- 
fore, in this place we wish to acknowledge, in the most ample 
manner possible, our special and frequent indebtedness to the 
following authors and works: Rawlinson's "Ancient Mon- 
archies;" Lenormant and Chevallier's " Histoiy of the East;" 
Milman's " History of the Jews ;" Wilkinson's " Manners and 
Customs of the Ancient Egyptians ;" Grote's, Thirlwall's, and 
Smith's works on Grecian history ; Arnold's, Mommsen's, Nie- 
buhr's, Merivale's, Liddell's, and Leighton's histories of Rome; 
Long's " Decline and Fall of the Roman Republic ;" Gibbon's 
"Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire;" Smith's "Rome 
and Carthage ;" Froude's " Caesar ;" Guhl and Koner's " Life 
of the Greeks and Romans ;" Hadley's " Introduction to Ro- 
man Law;" and Dunlop's, Cruttwell's, Eugene Lawrence's, and 
Charles Morris's histories and manuals of Greek and Roman 
Literature. 

College Hill, O m July, 1882. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. . 

THE RACES AND THEIR EARLY MIGRATIONS. 
Introduction.— Antiquity of Man.— The Races of Mankind.— The White 
Race and its Families. — The Turanian Tribes. — The Hamitic Peo- 
ples.— The Semitic Nations.— The Aryan Family. — Migrations of 
the Aryans. — Early Culture of the Aryans. — Importance of Aryan 
Studies Pages 1-12 

CHAPTER II. 

HISTORY OF ANCIENT EGYPT. 
Ecypt and the Nile.— Inundation of the Nile.— Cataracts of the Nile.— 
Climate. — Dynasties and Chronology.— Menes, Founder of the Old 
Empire.— The Pyramid Kings.— The Hvksos, or Shepherd Kings.— 
Amosis, Founder of the Mew Empire. — Thothmes III.— Amunoph 
HI.— Rameses II.— Psammetik I.— Necho II.— The Last of the Pha- 
raohs 13-25 

CHAPTER III. 

RELIGION, MONUMENTS, ARTS, AND SCIENCES OF THE ANCIENT 
EGYPTIANS. 

Classes of Society. — The Priesthood. — The Warrior Class. — Religious 
Doctrines. — Osiris, Isis, and Horus. — Typhon. — Animal- worship. — 
Explanation of Animal-worship. — The Saared Bull Apis. — Judgment 
of the Dead. — Tombs. — The Pyramids. — Palaces and Temples. — 
Sculpture : Sphinxes and Colossi.— Glass Manufactures.— The Papyrus 
Paper.— Forms of Writing. — Key to Egyptian Writing. — Astronomy, 
Geometry, and Arithmetic. — Medicine. — Egypt's Influence upon His- 
tory 26 -44 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE CHALDiEAN MONARCHY. 

Basin of the Tigris and the Euphrates. — The Three Great Monarchies.— 
The Chaldaeans a Mixed People. — Chaldaean Dynasties : Great Kings. 
— Nimrod the Founder. — Urukh the Builder. — Chedorlaomer the 
Conqueror. — Religion of the Chaldaeans. — Chaldaean Tower-temples. 
— Burial-mounds. — Cuneiform Writing. — Books and Libraries. — Chal- 
daean Literature. — Astronomy and Arithmetic. — Chaldaeans as Pio- 
neers in Civilization Pages 45-55 

CHAPTER V. 

THE ASSYRIAN MONARCHY. 

Introduction. — Tiglath- Pileser I. — Asshur-izer-pal. — Shalmaneser II. — 
Vul-Lush III. and Semiramis. — Sargon. — Sennacherib. — Esarhaddon. 
— Asshur-bani-pal. — Saracus 56-63 

CHAPTER VI. 

INSTITUTIONS, ARCHITECTURE, AND LITERATURE OF THE 
ASSYRIANS. 

Nature of the Assyrian Empire. — Character of the Assyrians. — Royal 
Sports. — The Royal Cities. — The Ruins of Nineveh. — Palace-mouuds 
and Palaces. — Assyrian Explorations. — The Royal Library at Nine- 
veh. — The Tablets and their Contents. — Influence of Assyria upon 
Civilization 64-73 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE BABYLONIAN MONARCHY. 

The Country and its People. — Babylonian Affairs from 1300 to 625 B.C. — 
Nabopolassar. — Nebuchadnezzar. — Successors of Nebuchadnezzar. — 
The Fall of Babylon.— The Great Edifices of Babylon.— The Temple 
of the Seven Spheres. — Palaces. — The Hanging Gardens. — The Walls 
of Babylon 74-86 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE HEBREW NATION. . 

Importance of Hebrew History. — The Patriarchal Age. — The Hebrews in 
Egypt. — The Exodus. — Conquest of Canaan. — The Apportionment of 
the Land. — The Judges. — Founding of the Hebrew Monarchy. — The 



CONTENTS. IX 

Reign of David.— The Reign of Solomon. — The Division of the King- 
dom. — The Kingdom of Israel.— The Kingdom of Judah. — Hebrew 
Religion and Literature Pages 87-100 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE PHCENICIANS. 

Origin of the Phoenicians.— Products of the Country.— Tyre and Sidon.— 

Phoenician Commerce. — Phoenician Colonies. — Routes of Trade.— Arts 

Disseminated by the Phoenicians. — Great Enterprises Aided by the 

Phoenicians 101-107 

CHAPTER X. 

THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. 
Kinship of the Medes and Persians. — The Medes at First the Leading 
R aC e._Reign of Cyrus the Great.— Character of Cyrus. — Reign of 
Cambyses.— Reign of the Pseudo-Smerdis. — Reign of Darius. — Reign 
of Xerxes I. — The Decline of the Persian Empire. — The Last of 
the Persian Kings 108-119 

CHAPTER XL 

INSTITUTIONS, RELIGION, AND ARCHITECTURE OF THE ANCIENT 
PERSIANS. 

The Persian Government. — Literature and Religion: Zoroastrianism.— 
Dualism in the Persian Religion. — Zoroastrianism Influenced by 
Magianism. — Persian Architecture.— Remains of the Persian Pal- 
aces - . . . . 120-125 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE HEROIC OR LEGENDARY HISTORY OF GREECE. 
Divisions of Greece. — Mountains.— Islands about Greece. — Other Lands 
Peopled by the Greeks.— Influence of Country.— The Pelasgians.— 
Foreign Influence.— The Hellenes. — The Heroic Age. — The Heroes. 
—The Argonautic Expedition. — The Trojan War. — Return of the 
Grecian Heroes.— Hellenic Migrations and Settlements. . . 126-135 

CHAPTER XIII. 

EARLY HISTORY OF SPARTA. 
Classes in the Spartan State.— The Lycurgean Institutions.— Lycurgus.— 



X CONTENTS. 

The Spartan Senate. — Regulations as to Land and Money. — The Pub- 
lic Tables. — Education of the Youth. — Estimate of the Lycurgean In- 
stitutions. — The Messenian Wars. — Power of Sparta . Pages 136-143 

CHAPTER XIV. 

EARLY HISTORY OF ATHENS. 

Founding of Athens. — The Kings of Athens. — The Archons. — Laws of 
Draco. — The Rebellion of Cylon. — The Laws of Solon. — Changes in 
the Athenian Constitution. — The Tribunal of the Areopagus. — The 
Public Assembly. — The Tyrant Pisistratus. — Expulsion of the Tyrants 
from Athens. — Ostracism 144-149 

CHAPTER XV. 

THE GRiECO-PERSIAN WARS. 

Expeditions of Darius against Greece. — Battle of Marathon. — Results of 
the Battle of Marathon. — Xerxes' Preparations to Invade Greece. — 
The Hellespontine Bridges Broken. — Passage of the Hellespont. — 
The Review and Census. — Provisioning the Persian Army. — Battle of 
Thermopylae.— The Burning of Athens.— The Naval Battle of Sala- 
mis. — The Battles of Plataea and Mycale. — Memorials and Trophies 
of the War 150-159 

CHAPTER XVI. 

PERIOD OF ATHENIAN SUPREMACY. 

Loyalty of Athens to the Grecian Cause. — Rebuilding the Walls of Athens. 
— Themistocles as an Envoy. — The Long Walls. — Aristides the Just. 
— The Confederacy of Delos. — Pericles and the Periclean Age. 160-169 

CHAPTER XVII. 

THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR: SPARTAN AND THEBAN SUPREMACY. 

Cause and Beginning of the War. — Pestilence at Athens. — Progress of the 
War. — The Mitylencans. — Close of the Peloponnesian War. — Spartan 
Supremacy. — Expedition of the Ten Thousand. — Decline of the Spar- 
tan State. — Theban Supremacy 1 70-1 77 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

PERIOD OF MACEDONIAN SUPREMACY. 

Macedonian Rulers of Hellenic Race. — Philip of Macedon. — Battle of 
Chseronea. — Plan to Invade Asia. — Alexander the Great. — Alexander 



CONTENTS. 



XI 



Crosses the Hellespont.-The Gordian Knot-The Battle of Issus.- 
Si eg e of T^-Alexander in Egypt.-The Ba.t.e of Arbe.a -Alexan- 
dHnL Aryan Home-Conquests in I„dia._P,ans and Death o 
A,exander-Character of Alexander Pages I7 3-.8 7 

CHAPTER XIX. 

STATES FORMED FROM THE EMPIRE OF ALEXANDER. 

Division of the Empire of Alexander-Thrace.- Macedonia. -Syria, or 

ne Kingdom of the Seleucidaa-Kingdom of the Ptolem.es m Egypt 

^Ptolemy I. Soter-Pto.emy II. Philadelphus-P.olemy III. Ener- 

getes-Pergamos-Pontos-Greece-Achxan and Ata Uagne, 

—Review 

CHAPTER XX. 

RELIGION OF THE GREEKS. 
Cosmography of the Greeks-The Olympian Council-Lesser Deities and 
MonsLI-Explanation of the Mythological Monsters-Nature of the 
" Modes'of Divine Communication-Grecian Oracles- deas 
of the Future-The Sacred Games-The Olympian G-es-Influ 
ence of the Grecian Games-The Amphictyomc Council-The First 
Sacred War. -Hospitality among the Ancient Gn ^^ Tl ^J 
pliant— Humanity of the Greeks .....•••' 

CHAPTER XXI. 

GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE, SCULPTURE, AND PAINTING. 
Pelasgian Architecture- Orders of Architecture. -Temple of Diana at 
Ephesus— The Delphian Temple— The Athenian Acropolis and the 
Parthenon— The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus— Progress in the 
Art of Sculpture. -Phidias— Praxiteles. -Lysippus— Chares and 
the Rhodian Colossus— Polygnotus—Apelles—Zeuxis andjar- 
rhasius 

CHAPTER XXII. 

GREEK LITERATURE. 

Homer and the "Iliad ."-Hesiod and Pindar-The Greek D™»-««* 
Dramatists— History and Historians— Herodotos-Thucyd.des- 
Xenophon-Oratory-Inflnence of the Assembly-Thetmstocles and 
Pericles.— Demosthenes and iEschines 2I 9 ' 



Xll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE. 

Relation of Mythology to Philosophy. — The Seven Sages. — Pythagoras. — 
^Esop. — Socrates. — Plato. — Aristotle. — Zeno and the Stoics. — Epicu- 
rus and the Epicureans. — Science among the Greeks. — Euclid. — Ar- 
chimedes. — Strabo and Claudius Ptolemy ..... Pages 228-238 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE ROMAN KINGDOM. 

Divisions of Italy. — Early Inhabitants of Italy. — The Latins. — The Ram- 
nes, or Romans. — The Beginnings of Rome. — Rome's First Conquest. 
— Rome Becomes a Great City. — Classes of Society. — Early Govern- 
ment : King, Senate, and Popular Assembly. — The Legendary Kings. 
— The Constitution of Servius Tullius. — The Expulsion of the Kings. 
— The Roman Religion. — Influence upon Political Affairs. — Chief 
Deities. — Eternal Fires of Vesta. — Oracles and Divination. — Sacred 
Colleges 239-252 

CHAPTER XXV. 

THE ROMAN REPUBLIC : THE CONQUEST OF ITALY. 

The First Consuls. — First Secession of the Plebeians. — The Covenant and 
the Tribunes. — Coriolanus. — Cincinnatus. — The Decemvirs and the 
Tables of Laws. — Misrule and Overthrow of the Decemvirs. — Military 
Tribunes. — The Censors. — Siege of Veii. — Sack of Rome by the 
Gauls. — Rebuilding of Rome. — Treason and Death of Manlius. — 
Plebeians Admitted to the Consulship. — Wars for the Mastery of 
Italy.— The First Samnite War.— Revolt of the Latin Cities.— Sec- 
ond Samnite War.— Third Samnite War.— War with Pyrrhus. 253-270 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE FIRST PUNIC WAR. 

The City of Carthage. — The Carthaginian Empire. — Carthaginian Govern- 
ment and Religion. — Rome and Carthage Compared. — First Punic 
War. — Beginning of the Contest. — The Romans Build their First 
Fleet. — The First Sea-fight. — Naval Battle of Ecnomus. — Regulus. — 
Loss of a Second Roman Fleet. — Battle of Panormus. — Regulus and 
the Carthaginian Embassy. — Loss of Two Roman Fleets. — Close of 
the First Punic War 271-283 



CONTENTS. Xlll 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 

Rome between the First and Second Punic Wars. — The First Roman Prov- 
ince. — Rome Acquires Sardinia and Corsica. — The Ulyrian Corsairs 
are Punished. — Carthage between the First and Second Punic Wars. 
— The Truceless War. — Hamilcar in Spain. — Hannibal's Vow. — Han- 
nibal Attacks Saguntum. — The Second Punic War Begun. — Hanni- 
bal Begins his March. — Passage of the Pyrenees and the Rhone. — 
Passage of the Alps. — Battles of Ticinus, Trebia, and Lake Trasi- 
menus. — Hannibal's Policy. — Fabius the Delayer. — The Policy of Fa- 
bius Vindicated. — The Battle of Cannae. — Events after the Battle of 
Cannae. — The Fall of Syracuse. — Fall of Capua. — Hannibal before 
Rome. — Hasdrubal in Spain. — Battle of Metaurus. — War in Africa. — 
Battle of Zama. — Close of the War Pages 284-299 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE THIRD PUNIC WAR. 

Events between the Second and Third Punic Wars. — The Battle of Cynos- 
cephalae. — The Battle of Magnesia. — The Battle of Pydna. — The De- 
struction of Corinth. — The Fate of Hannibal and Scipio. — Carthage 
must be Destroyed. — Roman Perfidy. — Carthaginians Prepare to De- 
fend their City. — The Destruction of Carthage. — War in Spain. — Siege 
ofNumantia - 300-307 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 

The Servile War in Sicily. — The Public Lands. — The Reforms of the 
Gracchi. — The War with Jugurtha. — Invasion of the Cimbri and Teu- 
tones. — The Social or Marsic War. — The Civil War of Marius and 
Sulla. — The Wanderings of Marius. — Return of Marius to Italy. — 
Sulla and the Mithridatic War. — The Proscriptions of Sulla. — The 
Triumph and Death of Sulla 3°S~3 2 5 

CHAPTER XXX. 

THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC (concluded). 

Pompey the Great in Spain. — Spartacus : War of the Gladiators. — The 
Abuses of Verres. — War with the Mediterranean Pirates. — Pompey 
and the Mithridatic War. — Pompey's Triumph. — The Conspiracy of 
Catiline. — Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey. — The First Triumvirate. — 



XIV CONTENTS. 

Caesar's Conquests in Gaul and Britain. — Results of the Gallic Wars. 
— Crassus in the East. — Caesar Crosses the Rubicon. — The Civil War 
of Caesar and Pompey. — The Battle of Pharsalia. — Close of the Civil 
War. — Caesar as a Statesman. — The Death of Caesar. — Funeral Ora- 
tion by Mark Antony. — The Second Triumvirate. — Last Struggle of 
the Republic at Philippi. — The New Division of the Roman World. — 
Antony and Cleopatra. — The Battle of Actium. — Deaths of Antony 
and Cleopatra Pages 326-354 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 

Reign of Augustus Caesar. — Reign of Tiberius. — Reign of Caligula. — 
Reign of Claudius. — Reign of Nero. — Galba, Otho, and Vitellius. — 
Reign of Vespasian. — Reign of Titus. — Domitian. — Last of the Twelve 
Caesars. — Reign of Nerva. — Reign of Trajan. — Reign of Hadrian. — 
First Two of the Antonines 355 - 37^ 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST. 

Reign of Commodus. — The Public Sale of the Empire. — Reign of'Septim- 
ius Severus. — Reign of Caracalla. — Reign of Elagabalus. — Reign of 
Alexander Severus. — The Thirty Tyrants. — The Fall of Palmyra. — 
Reign of Diocletian. — Reign of Constantine the Great. — Reign of Ju- 
lian the Apostate. — Reign of Jovian. — Valentinian and Valens. — The 
Movements of the Barbarians. — The Goths Cross the Danube. — The- 
odosius the Great. — Final Division of the Empire. — The Eastern Em- 
pire. — Last Days of the Empire of the West. — First Invasion of Italv 
by Alaric. — Last Triumph at Rome. — Last Gladiatorial Combat. — 
Invasion of Italy by the German Tribes. — The Ransom of Rome. — 
Sack of Rome by Alaric. — Effects of the Disaster upon Paganism. — 
The Death of Alaric. — The Barbarians Seize the Western Provinces. 
— Invasion of the Huns. — Battle of Chalons. — The Death of Attila. — 
Sack of Rome by the Vandals. — Fall of the Roman Empire of the 
West 379-411 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. 

Introductory. — Greek Origin of Roman Architecture. — Roman Temples. — 
The Circus. — The Games of the Circus. — Theatres. — The Amphithea- 
tre. — The Shows of the Amphitheatre. — The Gladiatorial Combats. — 



CONTENTS. XV 

Suppression of the Gladiatorial Shows. — Military Roads. — Aque- 
ducts. — Thermae, or Baths. — Palaces and Villas. — Triumphal Col- 
umns and Arches. — The Roman Triumph. — Sepulchral Monu- 
ments Pages 412-434 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

LATIN LITERATURE. 
Literature among the Romans. — The Period of Literary Activity. — Greek 
Learning and Latin Literature. — Epochs and their Writers.— Lays and 
Ballads of the Legendary Age. — The Roman Dramatists. — Poets of 
the Republic. — Poets of the Augustan Age. — Satire and Satirists. — 
Oratory among the Romans. — Latin Historians. — Science, Ethics, and 
Philosophy. — Writers of the Early Latin Church. — Roman Law and 
Law Literature. — Close of Latin Literature 435-471 

INDEX 473 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE RACES AND THEIR EARLY MIGRATIONS. 

Introduction. — History is a narrative of events so told as to 
show the origin and growth of customs and manners, of arts 
and sciences, of government and religion, among men. For 
convenience, History is divided into three periods — Ancient, 
Mediaeval, and Modern. Ancient History begins with the first 
appearance of man upon the earth, and extends to the fall of 
the Western Roman Empire, a.d. 476. Mediaeval History em- 
braces the period, about one thousand years in length, lying 
between the fall of Rome and the discovery of the New World 
by Columbus, a.d. 1492. Modern History commences with 
the close of the Mediaeval period and extends to the present 
time. 

Antiquity of Man. — We do not know when man first came 
into possession of the earth. His antiquity, like the age of 
the planet he inhabits, is shrouded in obscurity. But as the 
science of geology has taught us that the earth is very old, 
much older than we once thought, so different sciences are 
telling us that man has been upon the earth a much longer 
time than we had inferred from a wrong interpretation of the 
first chapters of Genesis. Yet we can set no definite date to 
his first appearance. We only know that when the historic 
curtain first rises, about 3000 B.C., vast migratory movements, 



2 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

manifestly begun long before that date, are going on among 
the families and tribes of the different races of mankind ; and 
that in some favored regions, as in the Valley of the Nile, are 
nations and civilizations already venerable with age, and pos- 
sessing arts, governments, and institutions that bear evidence 
of slow growth through very long periods of prehistoric times. 

The Races of Mankind. — Distinctions in form, color, and 
physiognomy divide the human species into four great types, or 
races, known as the Black (Ethiopian), the Red (American), 
the Yellow (Mongolian), and the White (Caucasian). These 
races subdivide themselves into families; and these, again, into 
nations, tribes, and clans. As to which of these great races is 
the oldest, or the original type, we have no positive knowledge ; 
however, many testimonies — ethnological, linguistic, and his- 
torical — concur in leading us to assume that they all stand in 
the relation of children to an original mother-type that is lost. 

We must not suppose these four types to be sharply marked 
off each from all the others: they shade into one another by 
insensible gradations. Thus, passing from the temperate re- 
gions of Northern Africa to the tropical countries of the in- 
terior of that continent, we find the different tribes encountered 
exhibiting a "chromatic scale" that embraces all the shades of 
color, from the slightly bronzed Caucasian to the jet-black ne- 
gro. Yet we know that those race characteristics to which 
we have referred, though capable of being greatly modified by 
climate and the varying conditions of life, are very persistent. 
There has been no perceptible change in the great types dur- 
ing historic times. The paintings upon the oldest Egyptian 
monuments show us that at the dawn of history, about five 
thousand years ago, the principal races were as distinctly 
marked as now, each bearing its racial badge of color and 
physiognomy. As early as the times of Jeremiah, the perma- 
nency of physical characteristics had passed into the proverb, 
" Can the Ethiopian change his skin ?" 



THE RACES AND THEIR EARLY MIGRATIONS. 3 

On account of this persistent character of form, complexion, 
and physiognomy, these physical distinctions form a better 
basis of classification than language; for migrations and con- 
quests often result in a people's giving up their own and adopt- 
ing a foreign tongue, while at the same time retaining all their 
physical peculiarities. To efface these requires a great lapse of 
time. Thus the Jews have in general adopted the languages of 
the different peoples among whom they have found a home ; but 
the Hebrew physiognomy is as marked to-day as it was three 
thousand years ago. Still we must not forget that any classifi- 
cation which we may make, ethnic or linguistic, is rather con- 
venient than absolutely accurate. 

The White Race and its Families. — The White race exhibits 
the most perfect type, physically, intellectually, and morally, of 
all the varieties of mankind. It is the race with which we shall be 
almost exclusively concerned, as the first three races — the Black, 
the Red, and the Yellow — have scarcely assumed any part in the 
drama of history. Possessing richer mental and spiritual en- 
dowments than the other races, and animated, in most of its 
branches, with a wonderful energy, the migrations and con- 
quests of its different peoples, and the achievements of its vari- 
ous families in the fields of science, art, literature, philosophy, 
and religion, fill most of the pages of the historian, and render 
instructive the story he has to tell. 

This type subdivides itself into four great families— the Tu- 
ranian, the Hamitic, the Semitic, and the Aryan, or Indo-Euro- 
pean (formerly called Japhetic). Each of these branches in- 
cludes a large number of nations and tribes. In intellectual 
and spiritual gifts, these families rank inversely as named above. 
The Turanians have never evinced any aptitude for the arts 
and sciences, or love for the higher walks of culture ; while the 
last three, in the order mentioned, have been successively the 
standard-bearers of the constantly advancing culture and civil- 
ization of the world. 



4 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

The Turanian Tribes. — The Turanian family includes many 
and widely separated nations and tribes, which occupy a great 
part of Northern and Central Asia and large regions in Europe. 
Among its chief peoples may be enumerated the Turks, Huns, 
Hungarians, Tartars, Avars, Esthonians, Finns, Lapps, Iberi- 
ans, and Basques. In the remotest times the peoples of this race 
had spread themselves over all Europe and Asia. They were 
the first intruders upon these virgin continents, save in some 
quarters, as in India, where they seem to have encountered a 
still earlier negro population. Whence they came, or at how 
early a period they took possession of the continents, we can- 
not say; we are only certain that when, between 2000 and 
3000 B.C., the Semites and Aryans left their overcrowded 
homes in Central Asia, and went out in search of new abodes, 
everywhere they went, in India, in Persia, in Mesopotamia, in 
Asia Minor, and in Europe, they found tribes of this family al- 
ready in possession of the soil. 

These aboriginal inhabitants were either exterminated or ab- 
sorbed by the new-comers. In Europe, however, two small 
areas of this primitive population escaped the common fate — 
the Basques sheltered among the Pyrenees, and the Finns and 
Lapps in the far North. (Some consider the Etrurians in 
Italy as another remnant of the same race.) These little 
patches of primitive population have been likened to islands 
rising above the waters of a destructive inundation. The Hun- 
garians and Turks are Turanian peoples that have thrust them- 
selves into Europe during historic times. 

The rude stone implements found in the caves and river- 
gravels of Western Europe; the shell -mounds, or kitchen- 
middens, upon the shores of the Baltic ; and the Swiss lake- 
habitations, are supposed to be relics of this prehistoric race. 

The Hamitic Peoples. — The Hamites are called the pioneers 
in art, science, and government. They embraced the earliest 
communities that emerged from barbarism — the Cushites, or 



THE RACES AND THEIR EARLY MIGRATIONS. 5 

Ethiopians, the Egyptians, the early Chaldaeans, and the Ca- 
naanites. We shall see hereafter in how great a degree the 
Semites and Aryans were indebted to this race for the germs 
of their learning and culture. 

As in the case of the Turanians, we are without any positive 
knowledge respecting the original seats of the Hamites and 
their prehistoric migrations. In the very first dawn of historic 
time, we discover the chief peoples of this race already in place : 
the Egyptians are settled in the Valley of the Nile, the Cush- 
ites in Ethiopia and Southern Arabia, and the Chaldaeans 
are building great cities in the lowlands of the Tigris and the 
Euphrates. Some think that in the dim historic twilight the 
ancestors of the Canaanites and the Phoenicians (earlier) may 
be descried moving from the shores of the Persian Gulf across 
the Mesopotamian plains, towards the hill country of Palestine. 

The Semitic Nations. — The Semitic family includes among 
its chief peoples the ancient Assyrians, the Babylonians, the 
Hebrews, the later Phoenicians, and the Arabians. Many tes- 
timonies point to the hill country (Armenia) bordering the 
Valley of the Tigris and the Euphrates on the north, as the 
original abode of this family. From that region its clans and 
tribes pushed southward, and in time distributed themselves 
over the greater part of Southwestern Asia. 

In the upper portion of the Tigro Euphrates Valley, they es- 
tablished the great Assyrian Empire, which for many centuries 
held proud sway over all the peoples between the hills of 
Persia and the Mediterranean. In the lowland country of the 
same river-basin, they mingled with the Hamites, already in 
possession of the soil, and formed the mixed people of the later 
Babylonian Empire. The evidence of language and other testi- 
monies also lead some to believe that other portions of the same 
race penetrated into Egypt in the most remote times, and blend- 
ed their blood and culture with the Hamitic people of the Nile 
Valley. 



6 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

We possess more definite knowledge of the movements of 
another branch of this family. About 2000 B.C., differences in 
religious belief led a Semitic tribe, called the Abrahamic, to 
separate itself from kindred clans then dwelling near the head 
of the Persian Gulf, and go out in search of new abodes. Their 
patriarch Abraham, who was inspired with a lofty faith in the God 
whom he served, led this little company across the Mesopota- 
mian plains, and up into the country now called Palestine. The 
little band became in time strong enough to drive out or ex- 
terminate the Canaanitish (Hamitic) inhabitants of the land, 
and grew into the great Hebrew nation, which was destined 
to exert a moulding influence upon the religion and civilization 
of the world. 

It was not until the beginning of the Mediaeval period that 
the Arabian tribes assumed any important part in the trans- 
actions of history. Then, under the name of Saracens, and as 
teachers of a new faith, called from its founder Mohammedan- 
ism, they issued from the deserts of the Arabian peninsula, and 
swiftly spread their authority and religion over all the countries 
of Western Asia and large parts of Africa. 

The varied movements of the Semites, their displacement of 
the Hamites, and their comminglings with these earlier peoples, 
render it extremely difficult to classify the nations that arose in 
the regions where these two families, or races, touched and over- 
lapped each other. Especially is this true in the case of the 
Egyptians, the Phoenicians, and the Chaldseans. By some, all 
these peoples have been declared to be Semitic ; while others 
have called them all Hamitic. From the evidence we now 
possess, we must think of the original settlers of Egypt, Chaldasa, 
and probably Phoenicia, as Hamites, who were afterwards Semit- 
ized by the different Semitic peoples with whom they came in 
contact and blended. 

The Aryan Family.— The Aryan, or Indo-European, though 
probably the youngest, is the most widely scattered family of 



THE RACES AND THEIR EARLY MIGRATIONS. 7 

the White race. It includes among its members the ancient 
Hindus, the Medes and Persians, the classic Greeks and Ro- 
mans, and the modern descendants of all these nations; also 
the Celtic, Germanic, and Slavonic peoples of Europe, and their 
colonists that have peopled the New World, and taken posses- 
sion of other parts of the earth. This is the family to which 
we ourselves belong. 

Migrations of the Aryans. — The original seats of the Aryan 
peoples were the highlands of Central Asia, east of the Caspian 
Sea and north of the Hindu Kush Mountains. This upland 
country, now for the most part arid and uninviting, was in re- 
mote times a delightful region that drew forth unbounded 
praise from the early Aryan poets. Gradual changes in the 
climate, which rendered the country inhospitable, pressure of 
population, and religious disputes and wars caused the Aryan 
household, at a period that cannot be placed later than 3000 
B.C., to begin to break up and scatter, and the different clans 
and tribes to set out in search of new dwelling-places. 

One branch of the family, called the Indo-Iranic, the ances- 
tors of the Hindus and the Persians, turning from the primitive 
home, moved southward, and, for a long time after separation 
from the other members of the household, lived together as one 
family, united in a single faith and worship. But difference in 
religious belief arising, caused, it is supposed, by the teachings 
of the great prophet Zoroaster, the company was divided into two 
bands, which parted abruptly the one from the other. One of 
these, holding on their way to the south, climbed the snowy passes 
of the Hindu Kush, which lay in their path, and, descending 
upon the plains beyond, drove out the Turanian tribes they 
found occupying the land, and became the ancestors of the 
Hindus. The other company turned to the southwest, and, 
spreading themselves over the table-lands of Iran, became the 
progenitors of the Medes and Persians. 

About the time of these migrations to the south and south- 



8 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

west, other clans set their faces towards Europe. The journey of 
these families was long and eventful. The stream of migration 
that set in this direction was divided into two branches. One 
division skirted the southern shore of the Euxine, and, enter- 
ing Europe by the way of the Hellespont or over the thickly 
strewn islands of the ^Egean, pushed themselves into the 
peninsulas of Greece and Italy, and founded the Greek and 
Roman nations. 

The second division passed to the north of the Black Sea, 
and, crossing the rivers that lay in their path, poured into Cen- 
tral Europe. The vanguard of these tribes are known as the 
Celts. After them came the Germanic tribes, who crowded 
the former out on the westernmost edge of Europe — up into the 
corners of France and out upon the British Isles. These 
hard-pressed Celts are represented to-day by the Welsh, the 
Irish, and the Highland Scots. Behind the Germanic peoples 
were the Slavonic folk, who pushed the former hard against 
the Celts, and, when they could urge them no farther to the 
west, finally settled down and became the ancestors of the Rus- 
sians, Bohemians, Poles, Servians, and other kindred nations. 

Although these migratory movements of the various clans 
and tribes of this wonderful Aryan "family commenced in the 
early morning of history, some five thousand years ago, still we 
must not think of them as something past and unrelated to the 
present These movements, begun in those remote times, are 
still going on. The overflow of the population of Europe into 
the different regions of the New World is simply a continuance 
of the outpourings of the primitive Aryan household into the 
surrounding countries. 

Everywhere the other races have given way before the ad- 
vance of the Aryan peoples, or have been absorbed by them. 
Having possessed themselves of the riches of the Hamitic and 
Semitic civilizations — having made their own the wisdom of 
the Egyptians, the arts of the Assyrians, the religion of the He- 
brews — they have assumed the position of teachers among the 



THE RACES AND THEIR EARLY MIGRATIONS. 9 

families of mankind, and are rapidly spreading their arts and 
sciences and culture over the earth. 

Early Culture of the Aryans. — One of the most fascinating 
studies of recent growth is that which reveals to us the customs 
and beliefs of the early Aryan peoples while their ancestors 
were yet living together as a single household in Central Asia. 
Upon comparing the myths, legends, ballads, and nursery tales 
of the different Aryan peoples, we discover the curious fact that, 
under various disguises, they are the same. Jack the Giant- 
killer with his seven-league boots is identical with Mercury 
with his winged sandals. William Tell with his unerring aim 
is the archer-god Apollo with his " twanging bow." And many 
of our nursery tales are found to be identical with those with 
which the Hindu children are amused. But the discovery 
should not surprise us. We and the Hindus are kinsmen, 
children of the same home ; so now, when after a long sepa- 
ration we meet, the tales we tell are the same, for they are the 
stories that were told around the common hearth-fire of our 
Aryan forefathers. 

And when we compare certain words in different Aryan 
languages, we often find them alike in form and meaning; 
hence we infer that these words were used in the primitive 
household. Such words, preserved in the strata of language, 
are to the philologist what fossils, buried in the strata of the 
earth, are to the geologist. Each has a story to tell. Thus 
take our word daughter. This occurs with little change of 
form in several of the Aryan tongues (Sanscrit, or old Hindu, 
duhitor; Zend, or old Persian, dughdhor; Teutonic, or German, 
dughtor). Now, in Sanscrit, which language has preserved most 
unchanged the ancient Aryan speech, this word means a milk- 
maid. Here, then, we have two facts : that the cow or goat 
had been domesticated by our ancestors before they left Cen- 
tral Asia ; and that the girls of the family tended and milked 

the herds. 

2 



10 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Our knowledge of the prehistoric culture of the Aryans, thus 
gained by the science of comparative philology and mythology, 
may be summed up as follows: They possessed a simple mono- 
theistic faith, or belief in a Supreme Being, whom they called 
the Heaven-Father (Dyaus-Pitar). They had advanced beyond 
the nomadic state — were farmers and herdsmen, and dwelt in 
towns defended by walls. "Their wealth was reckoned in 
cows, and cows were the circulating medium, with sheep and 
pigs for small change." They introduced these animals, as 
well as the horse, goat, and dog, into Europe. (The Turanian 
people whom they displaced had no domestic animals.) They 
kept bees and got intoxicated upon a beverage made from the 
honey. " Their wheat was cut with the sickle, threshed and 
winnowed, and carried to mill in wagons fitted with wheels and 
axletrees. The blacksmith's work, with hammer and anvil and 
forge and bellows, was also carried on. Sewing and spinning 
were feminine occupations, and garments were woven out of 
sheep's wool. The art of tanning was also practised, and leather 
shoes were worn" (Fiske). 

They were fair builders, and navigated the rivers and inland 
seas of their regions with canoes or skiffs. They rode in wag- 
ons, but did not ride horseback. They were versed in the art 
of war, and had made beginnings in astronomy and mathemat- 
ics. The father was head of the family, in which the wife held 
an honored position. The children were given names express- 
ive of love and endearment. The families were united to form 
village-communities, ruled by a chief, or patriarch, who was as- 
sisted by a council of seven. These village-communities again 
united to form clans or tribes, at the head of which was a king, 
or feudal lord, chosen from among the patriarchs. This " peo- 
ple's father " was consecrated to his office by being seated on 
a stone, a custom still preserved in the coronation of the sov- 
ereigns of England.* From the decision of the king, who was 

* The early Scottish monarchs were crowned at Scone on the Tay. The 



THE RACES AND THEIR EARLY MIGRATIONS. IT 

also judge of his people, an appeal could be made, by the or- 
deal of fire and water, to the judgment of Heaven. 

Importance of Aryan Studies. — This picture of life in the 
early Aryan home, the elements of which are gathered in so 
novel a way, is of the very greatest historical value and interest. 
In these customs and beliefs of the early Aryans, we discover 
the germs of many of the institutions of modern European na- 
tions. Thus, in the honored position assigned the wife in the 
Aryan household are prefigured the institutions of European 
chivalry; and in the council of seven around the village patri- 
arch, political historians trace the beginnings of the Parliament 
of England. 

Just as the teachings of the parental roof mould the life and 
character of the children that go out from under its discipline, 
so have the influences of that early Aryan home shaped the 
habits, institutions, and character of those peoples and families 
that, as its children, went out to establish new homes in their 
"appointed habitations." 

coronation ceremony was performed by seating the king upon a stone. 
Edward I., having conquered the Scots, carried the sacred stone to Eng- 
land, and it now forms the seat of the coronation-chair in Westminster 
Abbey. 

A T ote to Table on page 12. 
The peoples of modern Germany are the descendants of various Teu- 
tonic tribes. The Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes represent the Scandina- 
vian branch of the Germanic family. The Irish, the Welsh, and the Scotch 
Highlanders are the representatives of the ancient Celts. The French, 
Spaniards, Portuguese, and Italians have sprung from a blending of the 
Celts, the ancient Romans, and the Germanic tribes that thrust themselves 
within the limits of the Western Roman Empire. The English are the 
descendants of the Angles and Saxons, slightly modified by contact and 
interminglings with the Celts, Danes, and Normans. 



12 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 



RACES OF MANKIND, WITH CHIEF FAMILIES AND TRIBES. 

ry. , ,,, . ( Tribes of Central and Southern Africa, the Papu- 

Black (Negro) j ans> and the Australians . 



Red (American) 



Yellow (Mongolian). 



Turanian or Scyth- 
ian 



Hamitic. 



Semitic 



White (Caucasian) 



The Indian tribes of North and South America. 
(Many ethnologists reckon this group as a sub- 
division of the following Mongolian race). 
The chief peoples of this race are the Chinese, 
Japanese, Burmese, Siamese, Tibetans, Mongol 
Tartars, and the Malays (often classified as a 
distinct race). 

Turks, 

Tartars, 

Huns, 

Hungarians, 

Avars, 

Finns, 

Lapps, 

Basques, 

Iberians. 

Canaanites, 

Chaldaeans (earlier), 

Cushites, 

Egyptians. 

Arabians, 

Assyrians, 

Hebrews, 

Babylonians (later), 

Phoenicians (later). 

Bactrians, 

Hindus, 

Persians, 

Medes, 

Greeks, 

Romans, . Gau] 

< Britons. 
Goths, 
Franks, 
Heruli, 
Bavarians, 
Batavians, 
Burgundians, 
Alemanni, 
Vandals, 
Lombards, 
Angles, 
Saxons, 
Scandinavians. 
Russians, 
Servians, 
Montenegrins, 
Poles, 
Bohemians, 
Dalmatians. 



Aryan or Indo- 
European 



Germanic or 
Teutonic . 



Slavonian 



HISTORY OF ANCIENT EGYPT. 1 3 



CHAPTER II. 

HISTORY OF ANCIENT EGYPT. 
(From unknown antiquity to 525 B.C.) 

Egypt and the Nile. — The ancient writers, who often put much 
meaning in a phrase, called Egypt "the gift of the Nile." Be- 
fore historic times, what is now the Great Sahara was covered 
by the waters of the Atlantic. Geologic changes at last lifted 
the rocky sea-floor — covered, for the most part, with a heavy 
mantle of sand — and it became the Libyan Desert. The Nile 
then flowed through a long, narrow, hill-bordered valley to the 
Mediterranean. At each annual rise of the river, caused by 
the tropical summer rains among the Abyssinian mountains, a 
thin layer of sediment was deposited over the narrow strip of 
submerged land along either bank of the stream.* Not until 
from forty to seventy feet of sediment had been laid down upon 
the limestone floor of the valley did it become the seat of that 
wonderful civilization whose monuments have come down to 
us; although from fragments of pottery found in the very low- 
est strata of the river sediment, we know the valley to have 
been occupied many ages before that time by a ruder people. 

Besides covering with a deep soil the bottom of its narrow 
valley, the Nile has also built up at its mouth a great delta, 
through which it now seeks the sea by several different chan- 
nels. This delta country was known to the ancients as Lower 

*The valley has a varying breadth of from two to eleven miles. The rate 
of the fluviatile deposit is from three to five inches in a century. The coun- 
try at Thebes, as shown by the accumulations about the monuments, has been 
raised seven feet during the last seventeen hundred years. 



14 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 



Egypt • while the valley proper, reaching from the head of the 
delta to the First Cataract, a distance of six hundred miles, 
was called Upper Egypt. 

Inundation of the Nile. — Through the same means by which 
Egypt was originally created is the land each year still re- 
newed and fertilized. The Nile begins to rise in its lower 
parts late in June, and by the end of September, when the in- 
undation has attained its greatest height, the country presents 
the appearance of an inland sea, with the villages of the na- 
tives, which are built upon artificial hills or protected by dikes, 
rising like little islands above the water. By the end of No- 
vember the river has returned to its bed ; and the fields, over 
which has been spread a film of rich earth, are left black, reek- 
ing morasses. 

Upon this soft, yielding surface, even while still covered in 
places with pools of water, the grain is sown, and sometimes 
simply trampled in by flocks of sheep or goats. In a few weeks 
the entire land, so recently a flooded plain, is overspread with 
a sea of verdure, which forms a striking contrast with the desert 
sands and barren hills that rim the valley. 

Climate. — In Lower Egypt, near the sea, the rainfall in the 
winter is abundant ; but the climate of Upper Egypt is all but 
rainless, only a few slight showers falling throughout the year. 
This dryness of the Egyptian air is what has preserved through 
so many thousands of years, in such wonderful freshness of 
color and with such sharpness of outline, the numerous paint- 
ings and sculptures of the palaces and tombs of the Pharaohs. 

The southern line of Egypt only just touches the tropics; 
still the climate, influenced by the wide and hot deserts that 
hem the valley, is semi-tropical in character. The fruits of the 
tropics and the cereals of the temperate zone grow luxuriantly. 
Thus favored in climate as well as in matter of irrigation, 
Egypt became in early times the granary of the East. To it 



HISTORY OF ANCIENT EGYPT. 



J 5 



less favored countries, when stricken by famine — a calamity so 
common in the East in regions dependent upon the rainfall — 
looked for food, as did the families of Israel during drought 
and failure of crops in Palestine. 

Cataracts of the Nile. — About seven hundred miles from the 
Mediterranean a low ledge of rocks, stretching across the Nile, 
forms the first obstruction to navigation in passing up the river. 
The rapids found at this point are termed the First Cataract. 
Six other cataracts occur in the next seven hundred miles of 
the river's course. The sacred islands of Elephantine and 
Philae lie, the former just below, and the latter just above, the 
First Cataract. One hundred miles below Elephantine, the 
limestone hills recede from the river in such a way as to form 
an amphitheatral plain about twelve miles across. This region 
is called the Thebaid, and is now filled with the ruins of " hun- 
dred-gated Thebes." 

South of the First Cataract lay Ethiopia, a land of very shad- 
owy boundaries. The northern part of the region was debat- 
able ground between the Ethiopians and the Egyptians ; yet 
during the best days of the Pharaohs they extended their au- 
thority permanently far beyond the first rapids, as is attested 
by the ruins that line the banks of the Upper Nile — the desig- 
nation given the river above the First Cataract. 

Dynasties and Chronology. — The kings, or Pharaohs, that 
reigned in Egypt from the earliest times till the conquest of 
the country by Alexander (333 B.C.), are grouped into thirty- 
one dynasties. Thirty of these we find in the lists of Manetho, 
an Egyptian priest who lived in the third century B.C., and who 
wrote a history of Egypt, compiled from the manuscripts kept 
in the archives of the Egyptian temples. Unfortunately, all of 
this work is lost save mere fragments. One of these contains 
the lists referred to. In connection with each dynasty Manetho 
gives the length of the reign of the family, and usually the names 
of the kings. 



1 6 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

We cannot assign a positive date to the beginning of the 
first dynasty ; for Egyptologists are at a loss to know whether 
to consider the dynasties of Manetho's list as all successive or 
in part contemporaneous. Thus, it is held by some scholars 
that several of these families were reigning at the same time 
in This, Elephantine, Thebes, Memphis, Tanis, and Sais — the 
different capitals of Upper and Lower Egypt; while others 
think that they all reigned at different epochs, and that the sum 
of the lengths of the several dynasties gives us the true date 
of the beginning of the era of Menes. Accordingly, Mariette 
and Lenormant place the beginning of the first dynasty at 5004 
B.C., and others still earlier,* while Poole and Wilkinson put it 
at about 2700 B.C. The constantly growing evidence of the 
monuments is in favor of the higher figures.! 

As in journeying up the Nile the traveller passes without de- 
lay the long, monotonous reaches of the river, and only stops 
when his attention is arrested by a group of famous pyramids 
or the ruins of some celebrated temple, so shall we pass with- 
out notice the long, uneventful periods in these thirty-one dynas- 
ties, and only stop when we reach some great name, some 
important conquest, or some significant event. These shall be 
our landmarks along this great dynastic stream, which flows 
through more than half the historic centuries of the world. 

Menes, Founder of the Old Empire.— Menes is the first kingly 
personage, shadowy and indistinct in form, that we discover in 

* A comparison of authorities will be interesting. Bockh gives as the date 
of Menes 5702 ; linger, 5613 ; Brugsch, 4455 ; Lauth, 4157 ; Lepsius, 3852 ; 
Bunsen, 3623 — later 3059 ; Poole, 2717 ; Wilkinson, 2691. 

t "The scholars who have attempted to compress the dates given by Man- 
etho have never yet been able to produce one single monument to prove 
that two dynasties named in his lists as successive were contemporary. On 
the contrary, there are abundant proofs, collected by very many Egyptologers, 
to convince us that all the royal races enumerated by the Sebennytic priest 
occupied the throne in succession."— Mariette. 






HISTORY OF ANCIENT EGYPT. 1 7 

the first dawn of Egyptian history. This king holds the same 
relation to the beginnings of political life and organized society 
in the Valley of the Nile that Nimrod sustains to these same 
matters in the Valley of the Tigris and Euphrates. Tradition 
makes him the founder of Memphis, near the head of the Delta, 
the site of which capital he secured against the inundations of 
the Nile by vast dikes and various engineering works. To 
him is ascribed the achievement of first consolidating the nu- 
merous petty principalities of Lower Egypt into a single state, 
known as the Old Empire, which existed with varying fortunes 
for at least a thousand years. 

The Pyramid King's (about 2400 B.C.). — The kings of the 
Fourth Dynasty, who reigned at Memphis, are called the Pyra- 
mid-builders. " With them the real history of Egypt begins." 
Tradition and the monuments here unite their testimony. 
Suphis (Khufu) I., the Cheops of the Greeks, was the first great 
builder. To him we can now positively ascribe the building 
of the Great Pyramid, the largest of the Gizeh group ; for his 
name has been found upon some of the stones, — painted on 
them by his workmen before the blocks were taken from the 
quarries. 

Others of this famous group of pyramids were raised by Sha- 
fra and Menkara, successors of Cheops. To some king of this 
family is also ascribed the sculpture of the Sphinx at the foot 
of the Great Pyramid. The most astonishing feature of the 
monuments of these early Pharaohs is the remarkable perfec- 
tion of the sciences and arts exhibited in their construction. A 
competent judge declares that they have never been surpassed. 

These mountains of stone heaped together by the Pyramid 
kings are proof that they were cruel oppressors of their people, 
and burdened them with useless labor upon these monuments 
of their ambition. Tradition tells how the very memory of 
these monarchs was hated by the people. The statues of Shafra, 
the builder of the second pyramid of the Gizeh group, have 



1 8 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

been discovered, broken into small pieces, at the bottom of a 
well near the Sphinx, into which the enraged people had thrown 
them during a political revolution soon after his death. 

The Hyksos, or Shepherd Kings (from about 2100 to 1650 
B.C.*). — While the kings of the old Memphian Empire were 
ruling in Lower Egypt, and building the Great Pyramids, an- 
other monarchy was growing up at Thebes, which gradually 
pushed its authority towards the Delta. Other states also 
sprang up, and the little country of Egypt was divided into 
not less than five petty principalities, and thus prevented from 
using its undivided strength to repel invasion. 

Such united effort was needed ; for just at this time the 
nomadic tribes of Syria, probably headed by the Hittites, being 
hard-pushed by the growing empires of the Tigro-Euphrates Val- 
ley, crossed the eastern frontiers of Egypt, took possession of 
the inviting pasture-lands of the Delta, and established there 
the Empire of the Shepherd Kings. These rulers gradually 
extended their authority up the Nile, and the Theban kings 
were forced to seek refuge in Ethiopia — a country, as we have 
already seen, lying astride the Upper Nile. 

These Asiatic intruders, "Tartars of the South," as they have 
been called, were rude and barbarous, and destroyed or muti- 
lated the monuments of the conquered Egyptians. Not a single 
temple was spared. For about four hundred years (some say 
two hundred) these foreigners held sway in the valley, and 
this period is almost a blank in the records and monuments of 
the country. It constitutes what has been called the " Middle 
Ages " of Egyptian history. 

* These figures are those of Lenormant. But much uncertainty attaches 
to the date for the beginning of the reign of the Hyksos. Rawlinson says: 
"The author is strongly convinced of the shortness of the Shepherd period, 
and cannot bring himself to assign to it a duration of above two centuries. 
He regards it as commencing about B.C. 1840, and terminating B.C. 1640" 
(" Hist, of Ancient Egypt," vol. ii. p. 22). 



HISTORY OF ANCIENT EGYPT. 1 9 

It 'was during the supremacy of the Hyksos that the families 
of Israel found a refuge in Lower Egypt. They received a 
kind reception from the Shepherd kings, not only because they 
were of the same pastoral habits, but also probably because of 
near kinship in race ; for it appears that, whatever may have 
been the original ethnic affinities of the invading tribes, they 
were partly or wholly Semitized before they entered Egypt. 

At last these intruders were expelled by the Theban kings, 
and driven back into Asia. This occurred about 1650 B.C. 
The episode of the Shepherd kings in Egypt derives great im- 
portance from the fact that these nomadic peoples, while in the 
valley, adopted the manners and customs of the Egyptians, 
and became acquainted with their arts and sciences, so that 
when driven out, as in the case of the children of Israel at a 
later period, they carried this knowledge, including the germs 
of alphabetical writing, with them, and through the wide com- 
mercial relations of the Phoenicians spread the same among 
all the early nations of the Mediterranean area. Thus Egypt 
became indirectly the instructor of Greece and Rome. 

Amosis, Founder of the New Empire (about 1650 b.c). — The 
revolt which drove the Hyksos from the country was led by 
Amosis, or Ahmes, a descendant of the Theban kings. He 
delivered the entire valley between the cataracts and the sea 
from the invaders, and restored the temples and monuments 
that had suffered from the rudeness of the conquerors. He was 
the first king of what is known as the Eighteenth Dynasty. 
The most eventful period of Egyptian history, covered by what 
is called the New Empire, now opens. Architecture and learn- 
ing seem to have recovered at a bound from their long depres- 
sion under the domination of the Shepherd kings. To free his 
empire from the danger of another invasion from Asia, Amosis 
determined to subdue the Syrian and Mesopotamian tribes. 
This foreign policy, followed out by his successors, shaped 
many of the events of their reigns. 



20 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Thothmes III. (about 1600 B.C.). — Thothmes has been called 
the greatest of the Pharaohs. He was at least a great warrior, 
and during his reign the frontiers of the empire reached their 
greatest expansion. His authority extended from the oases 
of the Libyan Desert to the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates. 
He built a strong fortress upon the latter river at Carchemish, 
added both Nineveh and Babylon to his kingdom, and exacted 
tribute and hostages from the various Mesopotamian princes. 
Tablets cut in the rocks., and various monuments commemora- 
tive of his conquests, are scattered from Algeria, in Northern 
Africa, to the Armenian Mountains, in Asia, and are found far 
up the Nile, in Abyssinia. 

Thothmes was also a magnificent builder. His architectural 
works in the Valley of the Nile were almost numberless. There 
was scarcely a city in Egypt that he did not decorate with tem- 
ple or palace or obelisk. He built also a great part of the 
Temple of Karnak at Thebes, the remains of which form the 
most majestic ruin in the world. All his monuments are liter- 
ally covered with sculptures and inscriptions — records of his 
numerous expeditions and great works. 

Amunoph III.— This name stands next after that of Thoth- 
mes III. as one of the great sovereigns of the Eighteenth Dy- 
nasty. Although, like his rival, a famous warrior, still it is the 
remains of his splendid buildings, scattered over the sites of 
the ancient capitals of Egypt, that have given him so prominent 
a place in Egyptian history. He added to the Temple of 
Karnak, and erected portions of the superb Palace of Luxor, 
which was joined to the former edifice by a grand avenue 
lined with a thousand colossal sphinxes. To him, too, is as- 
cribed the erection at Thebes of the celebrated colossus known 
as the Vocal Memnon. 

Rameses II. (about 1400 B.C.). — Rameses II., surnamed the 
Great, was the Sesostris of the Greeks. His is the most promi- 



HISTORY OF ANCIENT EGYPT. 21 

nent name of the Nineteenth Dynasty. Ancient writers, in 
fact, accorded him the first place among all the Egyptian sov- 
ereigns, and told mythical and most exaggerated stories of his 
conquests and achievements. His long reign, embracing sixty- 
six years, was, indeed, well occupied with military expeditions 
and the superintendence of great architectural works. But the 
empire of the Pharaohs had already passed to its culmination, 
and all Rameses's efforts were directed to upholding its falling 
fortunes. Fear of an invasion by the tribes of Syria led him 
to reduce to a position of grinding servitude the Semitic peo- 
ples that under former dynasties had been permitted to settle 
in Lower Egypt; for this Nineteenth Dynasty, to which Rameses 
II. belongs, was the new king (dynasty) that arose " which knew 
not Joseph," and oppressed the children of Israel. Especially 
was it under this monarch that their " lives were made bitter 
with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner 
of service in the field." Papyri recently interpreted tell us 
that the Hebrews were the builders of the treasure-cities of 
" Pithom and Raamses," as recorded in Exodus. 

Besides enslaving these Semitic tribes that migratory move- 
ments had brought into the Delta region, Rameses pressed to 
the work on his various edifices great multitudes of captives 
taken in his numerous wars, as well as negroes obtained by 
"man-hunting expeditions" into Central Africa. The native 
Egyptian peasants were also vexed by heartless taskmasters, 
taxes, extortions, and cruel punishments. As Dr. Smith ob- 
serves, "The epithet 'Great' is, as usual in history, but the 
tribute rendered by the weak judgment of men to arrogant des- 
potism and barbaric pomp. . . . We may venture to call him 
the Louis XIV. of the Egyptian monarchy; and 'after him 
came the deluge.' " It was during the reign of his son Me- 
nephtha that the Exodus took place. 



Psammetik I. (625-610 b.c). — We pass without comment a 
long period of several centuries, marked, indeed, by great vicis- 



22 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

situdes in the fortunes of the Egyptian monarchs, yet charac- 
terized throughout by a sure and rapid decline in the power 
and splendor of their empire. During the last one hundred 
years of this period, Egypt was, for the most part, tributary to 
the Assyrian kings. But when Nineveh fell before the Medes 
and Babylonians (625 B.C.), Egypt detached herself from the 
wreck of the empire, and a native prince, Psammetik, or 
Psammetichus, as he was called by the Greeks, succeeded in 
consolidating the many petty states into which the Assyrian 
conquerors had divided the country into a single well-ordered 
and powerful kingdom. Psammetichus thus became the foun- 
der of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. 

The reign of this monarch marks a new era in Egyptian his- 
tory. He effected an entire and radical change in the policy 
of the government. Hitherto Egypt had secluded herself from 
the world behind barriers of jealousy, race, and pride. Psam- 
metichus, entertaining broad and enlightened views, did just 
what we have seen the Mikado of Japan do so recently in his 
dominions : he reversed the entire policy of the past, and threw 
the valley open to the commerce and influences of the world. 
His capital, Sais, on the Canopic branch of the Nile, forty miles 
from the Mediterranean, was filled with Greek citizens; and 
Greek mercenaries were employed in his armies. Diodorus 
says : " He loved Greece so much that he caused his children 
to be taught its language. He was the first of the Egyptian 
kings who opened to other nations emporia for their merchan- 
dise, and gave security to voyagers; for his predecessors had 
rendered Egypt inaccessible to foreigners by putting some to 
death, and condemning others to slavery." 

This change of policy, occurring at just the period when the 
rising states of Greece and Rome were shaping their institu- 
tions, was a most significant event. Egypt became the Uni- 
versity of the Mediterranean nations. From this time forward 
Greek philosophers, as Pythagoras and Plato, are represented 
as becoming pupils of the Egyptian priests; and without ques- 



HISTORY OF ANCIENT EGYPT. 23 

tion the learning and philosophy of the ancient Egyptians ex- 
erted a profound influence upon the quick, susceptible mind of 
the Hellenic race, that was, in its turn, to become the teacher 
of the world. 

The liberal policy of Psammetichus, while resulting in great 
advantage to foreign nations, brought a heavy misfortune upon 
his own. Displeased with the position assigned Greek mer- 
cenaries in the army, the native Egyptian soldiers revolted, 
and 200,000 of the troops, embracing the larger part of the 
warrior class of society, which ranked next in importance to 
the sacerdotal order, seceded in a bod)-, and emigrated to Ethi- 
opia, whence no inducement which Psammetichus offered could 
persuade them to return. 

Necho II. (610-594 B.C.). — The son of Psammetichus, Necho 
II., the Pharaoh-Necho of the Bible, followed the liberal policy 
marked out by his father. To facilitate commerce, he reopened 
the old canal connecting the Nile and the Red Sea — which had 
been cut by some former Pharaoh (probably Seti I. or Rameses 
II.). The lives of 120,000 of his subjects were sacrificed in the 
prosecution of this enterprise. P>ut the priests, who, like the sol- 
dier class, opposed the foreign policy of this Saite dynasty, suc- 
ceeded in stopping the work by means of an unfavorable oracle. 

Necho then fitted out an exploring expedition for the cir- 
cumnavigation of Africa, in hopes of finding a possible passage 
for his fleets from the Red Sea to the Nile by a water channel 
already opened by nature, and to which the priests and oracles 
could interpose no objections. The expedition, we have reason 
to believe, actually accomplished the feat of sailing around the 
continent; for Herodotus, in his account of the enterprise, says 
that the voyagers upon their return reported that when they 
were rounding the cape the sun was on their right hand (to the 
north). This feature of the report, which led Herodotus to dis- 
believe it, is to us the very strongest evidence possible that the 
voyage was really performed. It is said, that the expedition 



24 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

was absent three years ; and that, their provisions failing, the 
sailors landed each summer, sowed fields of grain, and, after 
waiting for the same to ripen, harvested the crop, and then re- 
sumed their voyage. 

The Last of the Pharaohs. — Before the close of his reign Necho 
had come into collision with Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. 
That powerful monarch wrested from the Egyptian king the 
strong fortress of Carchemish, that watched the Euphrates. In 
this event was written the fate of the empire of the Nile. Hence- 
forth the Egyptian princes were forced to acknowledge the suz- 
erainty of the Babylonian kings. 

Under Amasis (569-525 b.c), however, Egypt, although a 
vassal state, enjoyed a short period of unusual prosperity. 
Diodorus says that at this time Egypt held eighteen thousand 
cities ; Herodotus makes the number twenty thousand. Vil- 
lages and mere clusters of buildings were doubtless included 
in this enumeration. Yet, although the country had a large 
population, we must bear in mind that her military strength 
had been seriously weakened by the secession of the warrior 
class in the reign of Psammetichus. She could no longer offer 
formidable resistance to Asiatic conquerors. 

In 525 B.C., the Persian king Cambyses invaded the Valley, 
defeated and put to death the successor of Amasis — his son, 
Psammenitus, the last of the Pharaohs — and established the 
Persian authority throughout the country. Upon the extension 
of the power of the Macedonians over the East (333 B.C.), 
Egypt willingly exchanged masters ; and for three centuries 
the Valley was the seat of the famous Graeco-Egyptian Empire 
of the Ptolemies, which lasted until the Romans annexed the 
region as a province to their all-absorbing empire (30 B.C.). 



HISTORY OF ANCIENT EGYPT. 



25 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE AND SUMMARY OF EGYPTIAN 
HISTORY. 



Old Empire (em- 
bracing first 
seventeen dy- 
nasties) 



Middle Empire 
(rule of the Shep- 
herd Kings) 



New Empire (em- 
bracing 18th - 
26th dynasties). 



Later History. 



' Menes, legendary founder of the empire. . 
Great Pyramids built by kings of Fourth 

Dynasty ., 

Hyksos (Asiatic invaders) overthrow the 
Old Empire 

Shepherd Kings become masters of Egypt. 

Monuments of early kings destroyed or 
mutilated. Dark Ages of Egyptian his- 
tory. During the latter part of this pe- 
riod the children of Israel settle in the 
land. Period closes with expulsion of 
Hyksos by Amosis, a Theban prince. . . 

' Amosis establishes New Empire 

****** 

Thothmes III., warrior and builder, reigns 
* * * * * * 

Amunoph III., great builder 

****** 
Rameses I. establishes Nineteenth Dynasty. 

****** 

Rameses II. the Great. 

Menephthah (son of Rameses II.), Pharaoh 

of the Exodus 

Sheshonk (Shishak) 

Psammetichus I 

Neco (Pharaoh-Necho) 

Psammetichus II 

Apries (Pharaoh-Hophra) 

Amasis 

Psammenitus (reigned 6 months) 

Egypt a dependency of Persian Empire. . . 

Alexander conquers Egypt 

Ptolemies rule in Egypt 

. Conquest of country by Romans 



about 


2700 


« 


2400 


«' 


2100 


« 


2100 



1650 
1650 

1600 

1550 
1450 

1400 

1350 
993-972 

625-610 
610-594 

594-588 

588-569 

569-525 

52s 

525-332 

332 

325-30 

30 



26 ANCIENT HISTORY. 



CHAPTER III. 

RELIGION, MONUMENTS, ARTS, AND SCIENCES OF THE ANCIENT 
EGYPTIANS. 

Classes of Society. — Egyptian society was divided into three 
great classes, or orders — priests, soldiers, and common peo- 
ple ; the last embracing shepherds, husbandmen, and artisans. 
These divisions are more properly designated as classes than 
castes j for the characteristic features of the latter, as existing 
among the Hindus, are that the members " must abstain from 
certain forbidden occupations, contract no alliance beyond the 
limits of the caste, and must continue to practise the profession 
of their fathers ;" whereas among the Egyptians there were no 
such restrictions laid upon the two principal classes. The 
priest might become a soldier, and the soldier a priest, or the 
same person might be both at once. 

The Priesthood. — The sacerdotal order formed a perfect hier- 
archy, consisting of high-priest, prophets, scribes, keepers of the 
sacred robes and animals, sacred sculptors, masons and em- 
balmers, and a host of attendants and functionaries to care for 
the temples, and perform the complicated ceremonies of the 
national worship. They enjoyed freedom from taxation, and 
met the expenses of the temple services by the income of the 
sacred lands, which embraced one third of the soil of the 
country. 

The priests were extremely scrupulous in the care of their 
persons. They bathed twice by day and as often by night, 
and shaved the entire body every third day. Their inner cloth- 
ing was linen, woollen garments being thought unclean ; their 



RELIGION, MONUMENTS, ETC., OF ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. 27 

diet was plain and even abstemious, in order that, as Plutarch 
says, "their bodies might sit light as possible about their 
souls.'*' 

Perhaps to a greater degree than the priesthood of any other 
people did the religious teachers of the ancient Egyptians lay 
themselves open to the charge of deliberate and ingenious de- 
ception. They wilfully taught the people what they knew to 
be false. Their conduct in this respect will appear in the mat- 
ter of the Sacred Apis, of which we shall have occasion to speak 
a little further on. 

The Warrior Class. — Next to the priesthood in rank and honor 
stood the military order. Like the priests, the soldiers formed 
a landed class. They held one third of the soil of Egypt. To 
each soldier was given a tract of about eight acres, exempt 
from all taxes. They were carefully trained in their pro- 
fession, and there was no more effective soldiery in ancient 
times than that which marched beneath the standards of the 
Pharaohs. 

The military force of the nation numbered, in the best days 
of the empire, about five hundred thousand men, increased by 
allies and mercenaries, in case of special urgency, to more 
than one million. The army was made up of infantry, cavalry, 
and charioteers \ the archers of the first being the most effective 
branch of the service. The regiments are sometimes repre- 
sented upon the monuments as moving in a heavy mass, the 
prototype of the famous Macedonian phalanx. The Egyptian 
phalanx consisted of ten thousand men drawn up in a solid 
square, with one hundred men on each face. Protected with 
immense shields, this body, like its Macedonian successor, 
was practically impenetrable, and when moving over level 
ground bore down everything before it. 

The navy of the Egyptians was composed of Phoenician ships 
and sailors ; the Egyptians themselves hated the sea. Records 
have been discovered of naval engagements between the Egyp- 



28 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

tian fleets and their enemies upon the Mediterranean more than 
two thousand years before our era. 

Religious Doctrines. — Attached to the chief temples of the 
Egyptians were colleges for the training of the sacerdotal order. 
These institutions were the repositories of the wisdom of the 
Egyptians. This learning was open only to the initiated few. 
The papyri have revealed to us — more favored than the un- 
initiated of those times — the jealously guarded mysteries of Isis. 
The unity of God was the central doctrine in this esoteric sys- 
tem. They gave to this Supreme Being the very same name 
by which he was known to the Hebrews — Nuk Pu Nuk,"l 
am that I am."* The sacred manuscripts say, "He is the 
one living and true God, who was begotten by himself. . . . He 
who has existed from the beginning, . . . who has made all 
things, and was not himself made."t To this Being were 
given many names, to express the modes of his manifestations ; 
just as we give different names to the Deity — as Creator, Eter- 
nal, Father — to indicate the various relations he sustains to the 
universe and to ourselves. The inferior deities were likewise 
given many designations: Isis was called "the goddess with 
ten thousand names." 

Osiris, Isis, and Horus. — The Egyptian divinities were grouped 
in triads. First in importance among these groups was that 
formed by Osiris, Isis (his wife and sister), and Horus, their son. 
The members of this triad were worshipped throughout Egypt. 



* " It is evident what a new light this discovery throws on the sublime 
passage in Exodus iii. 14 ; where Moses, whom we may suppose to have 
been initiated into this formula, is sent both to his people and to Pharaoh 
to proclaim the true God by this very title, and to declare that the God of 
the highest Egyptian theology was also the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and 
of Jacob. The case is parallel to that of Paul at Athens." — Smith's 
" Ancient History of the East," p. 196, note. 

t Lenormant's " Ancient History of the East," vol. i. p. 318. 



RELIGION, MONUMENTS, ETC., OF ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. 29 

The Egyptians had whole libraries of myths and legends, some 
of them very beautiful and significant, respecting these favorite 
divinities.* Many of the other triads were composed of local 
deities. 

The origin of the triad, or threefold grouping of the gods, 
which is a feature characterizing many, if not all, polytheistic 
religions, is that anthropomorphic conception of the divinities 
which attributes to them all human distinctions, and creates a 
celestial family, composed, like the human, of father, mother, 
and son. 

Typhon. — Typhon, the principle of evil, was the Satan of 
Egyptian mythology. While the good and beneficent Osiris 
was symbolized by the Nile, the malignant Typhon was em- 
blemized by the terrors and barrenness of the desert ; or by a 
frightful serpent, slain by Horus ; and, again, by the hippopot- 
amus or the crocodile. 

Animal-worship. — As strange to us as to the Greeks seems 
the animal-worship of the ancient Egyptians. Clemens, after 
describing the superb temples of Egypt, the solemn ceremonies, 
and the magnificent processions of the priests, thus contrasts 



* " The peculiar character of Osiris, his coming upon earth for the benefit 
of mankind, with the title of ' Manifestor of good and truth,' his being put 
to death by the malice of the evil one, his burial and resurrection, and his 
becoming the judge of the dead, are the most interesting features of the 
Egyptian religion. This was the great mystery ; and this myth and his 
worship were of the earliest times, and universal in Egypt. He was to 
every Egyptian the great Judge of the dead ; and it is evident that Moses 
abstained from making any very pointed allusion to the future state of man 
because it would have recalled the well-known Judge of the dead and all the 
funeral ceremonies of Egypt, and have brought back the thoughts of the 
mixed multitude, and of all whose minds were not entirely uncontaminated 
by Egyptian habits, to the crude superstitions from which it was his object 
to free them." — Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," vol. i. p. 331. 



30 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

all this with the deity which is the object of this adoration : 
"But if you enter the penetralia, and inquire for the image of 
the god, one of the attendants approaches with a solemn and 
mysterious aspect, and, putting aside the veil, suffers you to 
peep in and obtain a glimpse of the divinity. There you be- 
hold a snake, a crocodile, or a cat, or some other beast, a fitter 
inhabitant of a cavern or a bog than a temple." 

To kill one of these sacred animals was adjudged the greatest 
impiety. Persons so unfortunate as to kill one through acci- 
dent were sometimes murdered by the infuriated people. A 
Roman soldier, having killed a sacred cat, was set upon by the 
multitude and killed, in spite of the intercession of the reigning 
Ptolemy. Every one knows of the device of Cambyses, who 
placed in front of his ranks animals held sacred by the Egyp- 
tians, who, through fear of injuring them, dared not strike a 
blow. The destruction of a cat in a burning building was la- 
mented more than the loss of the property. Upon the death 
of a dog, every member of the family shaved his head. The 
scarabosus, or beetle, was especially sacred, being considered 
an emblem of the sun. 

The Sacred Bull Apis. — The belief of the Egyptians that their 
gods incarnated themselves in various animals is best illustrated 
in their worship of the bull Apis. The soul of Osiris, it was 
imagined, animated the body of some bull, which might be 
known from certain spots and markings. One of these marks 
was a vulture with outspread wings upon the back of the ox. 
At Memphis was the sacred stable in which was kept " the fair 
and beautiful image of the soul of Osiris." 

Upon the death of the Apis, a great search, accompanied with 
loud lamentation, was made throughout the land for his suc- 
cessor ; for, the moment the soul of Osiris departed from the 
dying bull, it entered a calf that moment born. The calf 
was always found with the proper markings ; but, as Wilkinson 
says, the young animal had probably been put to " much in- 



RELIGION, MONUMENTS, ETC., OF ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. 3 1 

convenience and pain to make the marks and hair conform to 
his description." 

The body of the deceased Apis — if he lived beyond twenty- 
five years he was drowned — was carefully embalmed, and, amid 
funeral ceremonies of great expense and magnificence, de- 
posited in the tomb of his ancestors. In 185 1, Mariette dis- 
covered this sepulchral chamber of the sacred bulls. It is a 
narrow gallery, two thousand feet in length, cut in the limestone 
cliffs just opposite the site of ancient Memphis. Thirty of the 
immense granite sarcophagi, fifteen feet long and eight wide 
and high, have been brought to light. 

Explanation of Animal-worship. — Many explanations have 
been given to account for the existence of so low and debased 
a form of worship among a people so far advanced in the scale 
of culture as were the ancient Egyptians, and who, moreover, 
entertained such just and exalted conceptions of Deity. 
Plutarch said that the worship arose from the custom of using 
for military standards the figures of various animals, which 
gradually came to be regarded as sacred. Diodorus accounted 
for it by the fable that the gods, when hard pressed in their 
battle with the giants, sought safety in the disguise of animals, 
which hence became objects of adoration. 

The following seems the true solution : The ancient relig- 
ion of the Egyptians was the result of the meeting and partial 
blending and accommodation to each other of two very differ- 
ent systems of belief. Hence its dualistic character. The 
element which manifested itself in animal -worship had its 
origin and basis in that low form of religion existing at the 
present day among many African tribes, and known as fetich- 
ism, or the adoration of material objects, animate or inanimate. 
The purer monotheistic element, represented by the sacerdotal 
order, was introduced by the Hamites, or perhaps Semites, who 
mingled with the original dwellers in the Nile Valley. We 
know that the doctrines taught the initiated in the priestly col- 



32 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

leges prevailed from the very remotest times among the an- 
cestors of at least the latter of these Asiatic intruders. This 
sacerdotal class, finding their doctrines too refined and spiritual 
for the masses, allowed them to retain their own sensuous wor- 
ship, but dignified it with temples and magnificent ceremonies. 
In course of time attempts to harmonize the two forms of be- 
lief led to a complicated and ingenious system of symbolism, 
till every sacred animal and object in the lower mode of wor- 
ship was made to emblemize some attribute of the Deity. As 
all nature is a parable, an emblem, it was not an entirely fanci- 
ful system that was evolved by this endeavor. 

Judgment of the Dead. — Death was a great equalizer among 
the Egyptians. King and peasant alike must stand before 
the judgment-seat of Osiris and his forty-two assessors. This 
judgment of the soul in the other world was prefigured by a 
peculiar ordeal to which the body was subjected here. Be- 
tween each chief city and the burial-place on the western edge 
of the valley was a sacred lake, across which the body was 
borne in a barge. But, before admittance to the boat, it must 
pass the ordeal called "the judgment of the dead." This was 
a trial before a tribunal of forty-two judges, assembled upon 
the shore of the lake. Any person could bring accusations 
against the deceased, false charges being guarded against by 
the most dreadful penalties. If no proofs of impiety were es- 
tablished, the body was allowed to be borne across the sacred 
waters to the place of sepulture. But, if it appeared that the 
life of the deceased had been evil, passport to the boat of 
Charon, as the master of the barge was called, was denied ; 
and the body was either carried home in dishonor, or, in case 
of the poor who could not afford to care for the mummy, was 
interred on the shores of the lake. Many mummies of those 
refused admission to the tombs of their fathers have been dug 
up along these " Stygian banks." Diodorus affirms that several 
Pharaohs were denied the usual funeral obsequies. The soul 



RELIGION, MONUMENTS, ETC., OF ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. 33 

of the body thus adjudged unworthy of sepulture was con- 
demned to wander for a hundred years in the realms of the 
dead. 

But this ordeal of the body was only a faint symbol of the 
dread tribunal of Osiris before which the soul must appear in 
the lower world. In one scale of a balance, held by Horus 
and Anubis, was placed the heart of the deceased ; in the other 
scale, an image of Justice or Truth. The soul stands by watch- 
ing the result, and as the beam inclines is either welcomed to 
the companionship of the good Osiris, or consigned to oblivion 
in the jaws of a frightful hippopotamus-headed monster, " the 
devourer of evil souls." This annihilation, however, is only 
the fate of those inveterately wicked. Those respecting whom 
hopes of reformation may be entertained are condemned to re- 
turn to earth and do penance in long cycles of lives in the bodies 
of various animals. This doctrine is known as the transmi- 
gration of souls. 

These ceremonies at the sacred lake, and before the tribunal 
of Osiris and his assessors, are of great interest as showing the 
influence of the Egyptian religion upon the nations of Southern 
Europe ; for they are doubtless the original of the Acherusian 
lake, Charon and the Styx, and a whole series of Grecian and 
Roman fables and beliefs respecting the other world and the 
fortunes of the soul after death. 

Tombs. — "All Egypt bore the impress of religion." Before 
all things else, the tombs of the ancient Egyptians tell us of 
their faith and worship. They believed in the resurrection of 
the body and an immortal life beyond the grave. Hence little 
care was bestowed upon the temporary residences of the living, 
but the " eternal homes " of the dead were fitted up with the 
most lavish expenditure of labor. These were chambers, 
sometimes built of brick or stone, but more usually cut in the 
limestone cliffs that form the western rim of the Nile Valley ; 
for that, as the land of the sunset, was conceived to be the 



34 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

realm of darkness and of death. The cliffs opposite the ancient 
Egyptian capitals are honeycombed with sepulchral cells. 

These tombs were owned by the priests, and were bought 
and sold like any other form of property. They were fitted up 
in various styles to suit different purchasers; even the paintings 
and legends were all finished, leaving nothing to be clone save 
the insertion of the name of the deceased. Some of the 
wealthy class purchased sites from the priests, and then spent 
immense sums in embellishing family tombs, some of which are 
said to have rivalled those of the kings themselves. 

The poorer classes, who were unable to defray the expense 
of a separate tomb, were, after the embalming of the body in 
the rudest and most inexpensive manner, laid in tiers in great 
trenches dug in the desert sands. 

The sculptures and paintings of the tombs usually portray 
the occupation of the deceased, being representations of the 
various processes in different manufactures, scenes of social 
festivities, and domestic employments. Thus the artist has 
converted for us the Egyptian necropolis into a city of the liv- 
ing, where the Egypt of four thousand years ago seems to pass 
before our eyes. 

The Pyramids. — Remains of ancient pyramidal structures, the 
simple and durable character of which form of edifice led to its 
adoption by primitive builders, are found in all parts of the 
world — in Mexico, China, India, Chaldaea, and Egypt. But the 
enormous structures of this nature raised by the dwellers of the 
Nile Valley far surpass all other edifices of the same kind, and 
are the most wonderful and venerable monuments that have 
been preserved to us from the early world. The Egyptian 
pyramids were all erected before the Twelfth Dynasty, or the 
era of the Shepherd kings ; and the largest and most perfect, 
as we have already learned, were raised by the monarchs of 
the Fourth Dynasty. This fact lends to them the greatest in- 
terest ; for although thus standing away back in the earliest 



RELIGION, MONUMENTS, ETC., OF ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. 35 

twilight of the historic morning, they mark, not the beginning, 
but the perfection, of Egyptian art. They speak of long periods 
of growth in art and science lying beyond the era they repre- 
sent. It is this vast and mysterious background that astonishes 
us even more than these giant forms cast up against it. 

The principal Egyptian pyramids, sixty-seven in number, are 
found in groups along the edge of the Libyan Desert, for a dis- 
tance of about sixty miles above the present city of Cairo. 
Being sepulchral monuments, they are confined to the western 
side of the Nile Valley; for that, as we have already seen, was 
considered the region of darkness and death. 

The largest of the Gizeh group, the Pyramid of Cheops, rises 
from a base covering thirteen acres to a height of 480 feet. 
According to Herodotus, Cheops employed 100,000 men for 
twenty years in its erection, ten years' preparatory work having 
been expended upon the great causeway over which the stones 
were dragged from the Nile. 

All the pyramids were constructed of stone, save three or 
four, which were built of sun-dried brick. These latter have 
crumbled into vast conical heaps, like the mounds left by the 
pyramid-temples of the Babylonians. 

Several of the pyramids have been opened, and sarcophagi 
discovered in their inner chambers, thus proving their sepul- 
chral character. Ambition, doubtless, as well as a desire to 
secure the royal body against any possible accident or vio- 
lence, determined their enormous size. After the body had 
been placed within, the passage-way was closed by letting fall 
the stone portcullis ; and all traces of the entrance were then 
obliterated by masonry. 

Palaces and Temples. — The early Memphian kings built 
great unadorned pyramids, but the later Theban monarchs 
constructed splendid palaces and temples. " Thebes," says 
Lenormant, "in spite of all the ravages of time and of the 
barbarian, still presents the grandest, the most prodigious 



36 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

assemblage of buildings ever erected by the hand of man." 
The ruins that cover the site of this ancient capital are the 
remains of palaces and temples erected by the combined labors 
of many of the Pharaohs and Ptolemies from as early as the 
Twelfth Dynasty to the Roman conquest. " Most of the great 
temples, like our cathedrals, were the work of age after age" 
(Smith). Two of the most prominent masses of buildings are 
called, the one the Palace of Karnak, and the other the Tem- 
ple of Luxor, from the names of two native villages built 
near or within the ruined enclosures. The former was the 
work of seven kings, and was more than five hundred years in 
process of building. 

Any detailed description of these ruins is here impossible. 
We can only notice that the walls of both palace and temple, 
as well as the faces of the forest of columns and obelisks that 
adorned the numerous courts and corridors, are covered with 
sculptures and paintings, portraying the processions of the 
priests or the exploits of the kings. 

In connection with the temple proper were various build- 
ings for the use of the priests and the sacred college, which 
corresponded to the chapter of the modern cathedral. As an 
adjunct of the temple at Karnak was a Hall of Columns, 
which consisted of a phalanx of one hundred and forty gigan- 
tic pillars. Some of these columns measure seventy feet in 
height, with capitals sixty-five feet in circumference. 

Although the ruins of the royal and sacred edifices at 
Thebes surpass all others in the Nile Valley, still there are 
many remains of a similar nature, though less remarkable in 
extent, found upon the different sites occupied by the other 
capitals and chief cities of Egypt. Most of these, however, 
are of a later date than those of Karnak and Luxor. In Nu- 
bia, beyond the First Cataract, is the famous rock-hewn tem- 
ple of Ipsambul, containing gigantic statues of Rameses II. 
more than sixty feet in height. 

It is thought by some that the first Egyptian temples were 



RELIGION, MONUMENTS, ETC., OF ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. 37 

caves, which in time were enlarged and embellished with 
sculptures. Then, when the sacred structure was raised be- 
neath the open sky, it retained the characteristic features of 
the subterranean temples. It is certain that the massive 
Egyptian column had its origin in the large square pillar of 
rock left to support the roof in the excavated edifice. All the 
changes can be traced, from the rough rectangular support 
through the polygonal to the round column. 

Sculpture: Sphinxes and Colossi. — Egyptian sculpture grew 
out of painting or hieroglyphical writing. The figure or char- 
acter, at first a mere outline drawing, was after a time cut into 
the rock surface, and next the rock was chiselled away so as to 
leave the figure in bass-relief. Egyptian mimetic art barely 
reached the point so early attained by the Greeks, who cut the 
figure clear around, and forced it to stand out boldly away 
from all support. A strange immobility, at an early period, 
attached itself to Egyptian art, clue to the influence of religion. 
The artist, in the portrayal of the figures of the gods, was not 
allowed to change a single line in the sacred form. Hence 
the impossibility of improvement in sacred sculpture. Wilkin- 
son says that Menes would have recognized the statue of Osiris 
in the Temple of Amasis. Plato complained that the pictures 
and statues in the temples in his day were no better than those 
made " 10,000 years" before. 

The heroic or colossal size of many of the Egyptian statues 
excites our admiration. The two colossi of Amunoph III. at 
Thebes are forty-seven feet high, and are hewn each from a 
single block of stone. The appearance of these gigantic fig- 
ures upon the solitary plain is peculiarly impressive. "There 
they sit together, yet apart, in the midst of the plain, serene 
and vigilant, still keeping their untired watch over the lapse 
of ages and the eclipse of Egypt." 

At the same place, in connection with the Ramesseum, the 
supposed palace of Rameses II., is a granite statue of that 



38 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

prince, over fifty feet in height. "This is the largest ruin of a 
statue that has ever been known ; the foot alone is more than 
thirteen feet long."* 

One of the colossi erected at Thebes by Amunoph III. ac- 
quired a wide reputation among the Greeks and Romans, un- 
der the name of the "Vocal Memnon." When the rays of the 
rising sun fell upon the colossus, it emitted low musical tones, 
which the Egyptians believed to be the greeting of the statue 
to the mother-sun. These mysterious sounds, it has been af- 
firmed, were produced by a person concealed by the priests in 
the lap of the colossus. It is more probable that the musical 
notes were produced by the action of the sun upon the surface 
of the rock while wet with dew. "It had not been produced 
in the colossus before the earthquake that, about the time of 
Tiberius, threw down the upper part of the statue, and thus 
uncovered the fissures most exposed to the action of the dew ; 
it ceased when the statue was repaired by Septimius Severus, 
and put into the state in which we now see it" (Lenormant).f 

The sphinxes, figures having the head of a man and the 
body of a lion, symbolizing power and intelligence, were often 
ranked along the avenues forming the approaches to the pal- 
aces and temples. The most famous of the sphinxes of Egypt 
is the colossal figure at the base of the Great Pyramid at Gizeh. 
This immense statue, cut out of the native rock, is ninety feet 
long and seventy feet high. Excavations in the sand heaped 
about it revealed the ruin of a temple, or rather chapel, be- 

* Lenormant's " Ancient History of the East," vol. i. p. 336. 

t Musical rocks are found in different parts of the world. The phenom- 
enon is connected with granite rocks along the course of the Middle Ori- 
noco in South America. " By putting our ears close to this surface, we 
were able to detect low musical tones, which our guide observed were more 
audible in the early morning. The granite is split with deep crevices, that 
seem to give emission to these mysterious sounds" (Myers's " Life and 
Nature under the Tropics," p. 134). Humboldt explained the phenomenon 
by supposing currents of air, produced by the heating of the rocks, to beat 
against the spangles of mica that lined the crevices. 



RELIGION, MONUMENTS, ETC., OF ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. 39 

tween its outstretched paws. This sanctuary was sacred to 
the setting sun, the deity of the realms of death. " This huge, 
mutilated figure has an astonishing effect ; it seems like an 
eternal spectre. The stone phantom seems attention ; one 
would say that it hears and sees. Its great ear appears to col- 
lect the sounds of the past ; its eyes, directed to the east, gaze, 
as it were, into the future ; its aspect has a depth, a truth of 
expression, irresistibly fascinating to the spectator. In this 
figure — half statue, half mountain — we see a wonderful maj- 
esty; a grand security, and even a sort of sweetness of expres- 
sion."* 

Glass Manufactures. — The manufacture of glass, a discov- 
ery usually attributed to the Phoenicians, was carried on in 
Egypt more than four thousand years ago. The paintings at 
Beni Hassen represent glass-blowers moulding all manner of 
articles. Glass bottles, and various other objects of the same 
material, are found in great numbers in the tombs. Some of 
these objects show that the ancient Egyptians were acquainted 
with processes of coloring glass that secured results which we 
have not yet been able to equal. They imitated, with marvel- 
lous success, the variegated hues of insects and stones. The 
manufacture of precious gems, so like the natural stone as to 
defy detection, was a lucrative profession. The sacred scara- 
baei (beetles) were reproduced in glass, with linings so delicate 
that it is almost certain that magnifying-glasses were used in 
their manufacture. Glass cofBns were sometimes used. Proc- 
esses for cutting and grinding glass — patented quite recently 
among us as a new discovery — were well known to the Egyp- 
tian artists. 

The various articles of glass manufacture, as well as objects 
of the lapidary's art, which were produced by the Egyptians, 

* Ampere, as quoted by Lenormant, "Ancient History of the East," vol. 
i. P. 331. 



40 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

were sought after and highly prized by all the nations of an- 
tiquity. They are found in the tombs of Etruria and Greece 
and Asia Minor, and are dug from the palace-mounds of As- 
syria and Babylonia. The Phoenicians being the carriers of 
all this trade, they often received credit, among the peoples 
io whom they introduced these articles, for various inven- 
tions and discoveries of which they were simply the dissemi- 
nators. 

The Papyrus Paper. — The famous papyrus paper used by 
the ancient Egyptians was manufactured from a reed which 
grew in the marshes and along the water-channels of the Nile. 
From the names of this Egyptian plant, byblos or papyrus, 
come our words " Bible " and " paper." The plant has now 
entirely disappeared from Egypt, and is found only on the 
Anapus, in the island of Sicily, and on a small stream near 
Jaffa in Palestine. Long before the plant became extinct in 
Egypt an ancient prophecy had declared, "The paper reeds 
by the brooks . . . shall wither, be driven away, and be no 
more."* The costly nature of the papyrus paper led to the 
use of many substitutes for writing purposes — as leather, bro- 
ken pottery, tiles, stones, and wooden tablets. 

Forms of Writing. — The Egyptians employed three forms of 
writing : the hieroglyphical, consisting of rude pictures of ma- 
terial objects, usually employed in monumental inscriptions; 
the hieratic, an abbreviated or rather simplified form of the hie- 
roglyphical, adapted to writing, and forming the greater part of 
the papyrus manuscripts; and the demotic, or encorial, a still 
simpler form than the hieratic, and almost alphabetical in char- 
acter. The last did not come in use till about the seventh 
century B.C., and was then used for all ordinary documents, 
both of a civil and commercial nature. 

* Isa. xix. 7. 



RELIGION, MONUMENTS, ETC., OF ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. 41 

Key to Egyptian Writing. — The key to the Egyptian writing 
was discovered by means of the Rosetta Stone, for which the 
world is indebted to the savants that accompanied the expedi- 
tion of Napoleon in 1798. This valuable relic, a heavy block 
of black basalt, is now in the British Museum. It holds a tri- 
lingual inscription, written in hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek 
characters. Champollion, by comparing the characters com- 
posing the words Ptolemy and Cleopatra, in the different col- 
umns, discovered the value of several letters; and thus were 
opened the vast libraries of Egyptian learning. 

We have now read the Ritual of the Dead, which tells us 
what the Egyptians thought about the future life ; romances and 
fairy tales, among which is " Cinderella and the Glass Slipper," 
and a story written for the amusement of the little son of Ra- 
meses II. ; treatises on medicine, astronomy, and various scien- 
tific subjects; and books on history — in prose and verse — 
which fully justify the declaration of the Egyptian priests to 
Solon : " You Greeks are mere children, talkative and vain : 
you know nothing at all of the past." 

Astronomy. — The cloudless and brilliant skies of Egypt must 
have early invited the inhabitants of the Nile Valley, like the 
dwellers of the Chaldaean plains, to the study of the heavenly 
bodies. And another circumstance closely related to their very 
existence, the inundation of the Nile, following the changing 
cycles of the stars, could not but have incited them to the 
watching and prediction of astronomical movements. Their 
observations led them to discover the length, very nearly, of the 
sidereal year, which they made to consist of 365 days, every 
fourth year adding one day, making the number for that year 
366. They also divided the year into twelve months, which 
division we still follow. 

The birth of astrology was natural, and its absurdities are 
mingled with all the more solid astronomical attainments of 
the Egyptians. They noticed that the rise of the Nile began 



42 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

just at the heliacal rising of the bright dog-star Sirius, and they 
naturally inferred that the river obeyed some subtle influence 
of that body. In the Red Sea they saw, too, the tides rising 
and falling under some strange impulse from the wandering 
sun and moon. It was an easy step from these observed in- 
fluences of the heavenly bodies over the inanimate world to a 
belief in their benign or baneful influence upon the vegetable 
world and over human life and destiny. 

Geometry and Arithmetic. — The Greeks accounted for the 
early rise of the science of geometry among the Egyptians by 
reference to the necessity they were under each year of re- 
establishing the old boundaries of their fields — the inunda- 
tion obliterating old landmarks and divisions. Diodorus says, 
"The river, changing the appearance of the country very ma- 
terially every year, causes various and many discussions among 
neighboring proprietors about the extent of their property ; and 
it would be difficult for any person to decide upon their claims 
without geometrical proof." The science thus forced upon 
their attention was cultivated with zeal and success. A single 
papyrus has been discovered that holds twelve geometrical 
theorems. 

Arithmetic was necessarily brought into requisition in solv- 
ing astronomical and geometrical problems. We ourselves are 
great debtors to the ancient Egyptians for much of our mathe- 
matical knowledge, which has come to us from the banks of 
the Nile, through the Greeks and Saracens. Both our decimal 
and duodecimal systems of notation were originated by the 
Egyptians. 

Medicine. — The custom of embalming the dead, affording 
opportunities for the examination of the body, without doubt 
had a great influence upon the development of the sciences of 
anatomy and medicine among the Egyptians. That the em- 
balmers were physicians we know from various testimonies. 



RELIGION, MONUMENTS, ETC., OF ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. 43 

Thus we are told in the Bible that Joseph "commanded the 
physicians to embalm his father." The Egyptian doctors had 
a very great reputation among the ancients; several of the 
Persian kings attached to their courts medical advisers from 
the schools of Egypt. 

Every doctor was a specialist, and was not allowed to take 
charge of cases out of his own branch. As the artist was for- 
bidden to change the lines of the sacred statues, so the phy- 
sician was not permitted to treat cases save in the manner 
prescribed by the customs of the past; and if he were so pre- 
sumptuous as to depart from the established mode of treatment, 
and the patient died, he was adjudged guilty of murder. 

We know that dentistry was practised; for mummies with 
teeth stopped with gold have been discovered. Many drugs 
and medicines were used; the ciphers, or characters, employed 
by modern apothecaries to designate grains and drams are of 
Egyptian invention. 

In the various processes of embalming, the physicians made 
use of oils, resins, bitumen, and various aromatic gums. The 
bodies of the wealthy were preserved by being filled with costly 
aromatic and resinous substances, and swathed in bandages of 
linen ; while the bodies of the poorer class were simply "salted 
and dried," and wrapped in coarse mats, preparatory to burial. 
It is estimated that "between 2000 B.C. and 700 a.d., when 
embalming ceased, 420,000,000 mummied corpses" were placed 
in the various Egyptian cemeteries. 

Egypt's Influence upon History. — The influence of the arts, 
sciences, learning, and institutions of the ancient Egyptians 
upon the Mediterranean nations is but just beginning to be 
realized. From the Nile came the germs of much found in the 
later culture of Asia and of Europe. In speaking of the in- 
fluence of the political institutions of the Egyptians, Dr. Smith 
observes : " The Greeks regarded the laws of Egypt as the ex- 
pression of the highest wisdom and the fountain of inspiration 



44 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

to their own legislators and philosophers — Lycurgus, Solon, 
Pythagoras, and Plato; and the likeness between the Egyptian 
and Jewish codes is a decisive testimony alike to the merit of 
the former and to the purpose for which Moses was led to ac- 
quire his Egyptian learning."* 

* Smith's "Ancient History of the East," p. 191. 

" It has been said that ' the forty-two laws of the Egyptian religion con- 
tained in the 125th chapter of the Book of the Dead fall short in nothing of 
the teachings of Christianity,' and conjectured that Moses, in compiling his 
code of laws, did but 'translate into Hebrew the religious precepts which 
he found in the sacred books ' of the people among whom he had been 
brought up. Such expressions are, no doubt, exaggerated ; but they convey 
what must be allowed to be a fact — viz., that there is a very close agreement 
between the moral law of the Egyptians and the precepts of the Deca- 
logue." — Rawlinson's " History of Ancient Egypt," vol. i. p. 104. 



THE CHALDEAN MONARCHY. 45 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE CHALDEAN MONARCHY. 
(From about 2300 to 1300 B.C.) 

Basin of the Tigris and Euphrates. — As in the case of Egypt, 
so the physical features of the Valley of the Tigris and Eu- 
phrates exerted a great influence upon the history of its ancient 
peoples. Differences in geological structure divide this region 
into an upper and a lower district ; and this division in natural 
feature is reflected throughout its political history. The north- 
ern part, which comprised ancient Assyria, forms undulating 
plains, so elevated above their streams that the waters of these 
can be rendered available only by laborious systems of irri- 
gation. 

But all the southern portion of this great river-basin presents 
quite a different aspect. This lower distinct has been formed 
by the gradual encroachment of the deposits of the Tigris and 
Euphrates upon the waters of the Persian Gulf, and on this ac- 
count has been called the " Asian Egypt." Owing to its origin, 
it is as level as the sea, and the soil is of inexhaustible fertil- 
ity. The climate is almost rainless, and hence agriculture is 
dependent mainly upon artificial irrigation. The distribution 
of the waters of the Tigris and the Euphrates was secured, in 
ancient times, by a stupendous system of canals and irrigants, 
which, at the present day, in a sand-choked and ruined condi- 
tion, spread like a perfect network over the face of the country. 

The productions of Babylonia are very like those of the 
Nile Valley. The luxuriant growth of grain upon these alluvial 
flats excited the wonder of all the Greek travellers who visited 
the East. Herodotus will not tell his countrymen the whole 



46 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

truth, for fear they will doubt his veracity. The soil is as fer- 
tile now as in the time of the historian ; but, owing to the neg- 
lect of the ancient canals, the greater part of this once popu- 
lous district has been converted into alternating areas of marsh 
and desert. 

The Three Great Monarchies.— Within the Tigro- Euphrates 
basin, three great empires — the Chaldaean, the Assyrian, and 
the Babylonian — successively rose to prominence and domin- 
ion. Each, in turn, extended its authority not only over the 
valley, but also made the power of its arms felt throughout the 
adjoining regions. We shall now trace the rise and the varied 
fortunes of these empires, and the slow growth of the arts and 
sciences from rude beginnings among the early Chaldaeans to 
their fuller and richer development unde'r the Assyrian and 
Babylonian monarchies. 

The ChaldsBans a Mixed People. — The Chaldceans, who were 
the pioneers of civilization in the Tigro-Euphrates Valley, were, 
as we have already learned, a mixed people. They had their 
origin in the blending of the four great branches of the White 
race — the Turanian, Hamitic, Semitic, and Aryan. In this com- 
mingling of ethnic elements, the Hamitic race outweighed the 
others in number and influence, and stamped the character of 
the resulting culture. Hence we properly speak of the Chal- 
daeans as Hamites, although it is a fact — a fact repeated in 
the history of many of those peoples that have done most for 
civilization — that in their veins mingled the blood of various 
races. 

Chaldaean Dynasties: Great Kings.— Through a Babylonian 
priest named Berosus, who lived in the third century before our 
era, we have preserved to us a list of the dynasties that ruled 
in Chaldaea from the founding of the Chaldasan kingdom by 
Nimrod, about 2300 B.C., to its overthrow by the Assyrian king 



THE CHALDEAN MONARCHY. 47 

Tiglathi-Nin, about 1300 B.C. Although during this long period, 
a full millennium, there were frequent changes in the ruling 
family, and Elamitic and Arabian princes held sway for long 
periods over the country, still the empire remained essentially 
Hamitic in language and religion. Of all the kings included 
in the lists of Berosus only three can claim our special atten- 
tion : Nimrod, the Founder of the empire ; Urukh, the Builder; 
and Chedorlaomer, the Conqueror. 

Nimrod, the Founder. — About 2300 B.C., many centuries after 
Menes in Egypt, and fourteen hundred years before Solomon 
at Jerusalem, Nimrod set up in the Babylonian plains, at the 
head of the Persian Gulf, an Hamitic kingdom, which, with 
varying fortunes, maintained an existence for more than ten 
centuries. In Scriptural history (Genesis x.), we are told that 
Cush begat Nimrod, " a mighty hunter," the beginning of whose 
kingdom was Babel and Erech, and Accad and Calneh, in the 
land of Shinar. 

Now, inscriptions and sculptures found on old Chaldaean 
seals represent Isdubar, one of the legendary kings of the 
country, supposed to be identical with Nimrod, as engaging in 
contests with lions and other monsters, or as a warrior subdu- 
ing and leading into captivity the peoples of surrounding coun- 
tries ; and the bricks composing different heaps of ruins on the 
Chaldasan plains have been recently discovered to be stamped 
with the Biblical names, so that antiquarians have been able 
positively to identify several of those crumbling masses of 
buildings with the Nimrodic cities mentioned in Genesis-. 

The brief fragmentary notices of the Hebrew writer, and the 
corroborative inscriptions of the old seals and bricks, embrace 
almost all our certain knowledge of the Great Nimrod ; yet 
" the strength of his character and the greatness of his achieve- 
ments are remarkably indicated by a variety of testimonies, 
which place him among the foremost men of the old world, and 
guarantee him a never-ending remembrance. At least as early 



48 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

as the time of Moses his name had passed into a proverb."* 
The Arabs ascribe to this legendary hero almost every great 
work in the entire valley, and many a mass of ruins is called 
" Nimrud " in his honor. 

Urukh, the Builder. — Urukh was a royal, and for the time in 
which he lived a magnificent, builder ; though to us the edifices 
he reared would appear rude and primitive. All the great 
structures of this king were tower-temples, built in several 
stages, and somewhat resembling the pyramids of Egypt. The 
sites of these edifices are marked at the present day by vast 
conical hills of crumbled ruins that dot thickly the Chaldaean 
plains. From the vast number and size of his works — for 
Urukh adorned each of the chief cities of his empire with a 
great temple — we may infer either that as a despot he had at 
his command the life and labors of his subjects, whom he op- 
pressed as the pyramid-building kings of Egypt burdened their 
people, or that as a conqueror he set to the task the captives 
of his numerous wars. 

Chedorlaomer, the Conqueror. — While the Chaldaean kings 
were building their great cities and pyramid-temples on the 
plains of Lower Babylonia, the princes of the Elamites, a peo- 
ple of Turanian race, were setting up a rival kingdom to the 
northeast, just at the foot of the hills of Persia. The capital of 
this Scythian Empire was Susa, thought to be one of the oldest, 
if not the very oldest, of Asiatic cities. In the year 2286 B.C., 
a king of Elam, Kudur-Nakhunta by name, overran Chaldaea, 
took all the cities founded by Nimrod and his successors, and 
from the temples of Urukh bore off in triumph to his capital, 
Susa, the statues of the Chaldaean gods, and set up in these 
lowland regions what is known as the Elamite dynasty. More 
than sixteen hundred years after this despoiling of the Chaldaean 

* Rawlinson's "Ancient Monarchies," vol. i. p. 153. 



THE CHALDEAN MONARCHY. 49 

sanctuaries, a king of Nineveh (Asshur-bani-pal) captured the 
city of Susa, and found there these stolen statues and caused 
them to be restored to their original temples. 

These events, about which we are told by the inscriptions 
recently deciphered, derive great interest from the fact that this 
campaign of the Elamite prince is the earliest instance of war 
waged and of cities captured upon the continent of Asia of 
which we have any positive knowledge ; for we must bear in 
mind that we cannot hope to separate the mythological from 
the purely historical element in the legends of Nimrod. The 
first lifting of the historical curtain reveals to us a scene of con- 
quest and robbery as the opening acts of the historical drama 
in the Valley of the Tigris and the Euphrates. 

Kudur-Nakhunta was succeeded by his son Kudur-Lagamer, 
the Chedorlaomer of Genesis, whose contact with the history 
of the Jewish patriarch Abraham has caused his name to be 
handed down to our own times in the records of the Hebrew 
people. Chedorlaomer is the first king of the Tigris and Eu- 
phrates Valley who pushed his conquests beyond the limits 
of that region, and conceived the ambitious project of uniting 
all the nations and tribes of Western Asia, between the hills of 
Persia and the Mediterranean, in one gigantic kingdom. He 
was at least partly successful in his plans ; for we know that 
the princes of Elam and Babylonia, and some of the kings of 
Syria, paid tribute to him. Rawlinson, in reviewing the char- 
acter of Chedorlaomer, says : " In thus effecting conquests 
which were not again made from the same quarter till the time 
of Nebuchadnezzar, fifteen or sixteen hundred years afterwards, 
Chedorlaomer has a good claim to be regarded as one of the 
most remarkable personages in the world's history — being, as 
he is, the forerunner and prototype of all great Oriental con- 
querors who from time to time have built up vast empires in 
Asia out of heterogeneous material, which have, in a longer or 
shorter space, successively crumbled to decay." 



50 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Religion, Architecture. Literature, and Science of the Ancien*. 
Chaldceans. 

Religion of the Chaldaeans. — The Chaldaean religion, in its fun- 
damental features, was like the Egyptian. The deity at the 
head of the Pantheon was II, or Ra, the latter name being one 
of the titles of the Egyptian Osiris, and the former being the 
root of the Hebrew Elohim and of the Arabian Allah.* Below 
II was a triad — Ana, Belus, and Hoa ; and next to these divini- 
ties a second triad — Sin (Moon), San (Sun), and Bin (Atmos- 
phere). Then come five planetary deities, representing Saturn, 
Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury, embracing all the planets 
visible to the naked eye. Besides these divinities, which con- 
stituted the twelve primary gods, were numerous secondary and 
local deities and genii. 

The feature in which this polytheistic system diverges most 
from that of the Nile Valley is the absence of animal-worship, 
or the adoration of material terrestrial objects, and the promi- 
nence accorded to the worship of celestial bodies. This is so 
marked a feature of the Chaldaean religion that it is often 
called Sabaeism, a worship of " the host of the heavens." The 
astral character of the Chaldaean worship greatly influenced, as 
we shall see, the sacred architecture of this primitive people, as 
well as that of the succeeding Assyrians and Babylonians. 

Chaldaean Tower-temples. — After the pyramids of Egypt, the 
tower-temples of the Chaldaeans are the oldest edifices erected 
by man of which traces have survived to our own day. They 
were simple in plan, consisting of two or three terraces, or 
stages, placed one upon another so as to form a sort of rude 
pyramid. The material used in their construction was sun- 
dried brick, the hills of Arabia and Persia being too distant to 
encourage the use of stone in any considerable quantity. The 

* Rawlinson's "Ancient Monarchies," vol. i. p. 114. 



THE CHALD^EAN MONARCHY. 5 1 

structure was sometimes protected by outer courses of burnt 
brick. Surmounting the upper platform was the temple proper, 
reached by stairs running up the sides of the stages. From 
the enamelled bricks, flakes of alabaster and marble, and occa- 
sional plates of gold, found in the rubbish on the top of the 
mounds, we may infer the beauty and richness of the shrine. 

All these tower-temples have crumbled into vast mounds, 
with only here and there a projecting mass of masonry to 
distinguish them from natural hills, for which they were first 
mistaken. It is probable that they were used as astronomical 
observatories, and that from their summits the Chaldaean astrol- 
ogers watched the changing aspect of the stars. 

Burial Mounds. — The coffins of the Chaldaeans have been 
pronounced the most curious sepulchral monuments of an- 
tiquity (Rawlinson). One kind consisted of a large terra-cotta 
cover, which was turned over the body, placed on a mat. An- 
other kind was made of two large jars, placed mouth to mouth, 
the joint being closed by bitumen. These curious coffins were 
deposited in tiers, in artificial mounds, often of vast extent. 
In the burial mounds about the city of Wurka, identified as the 
Ur of the Bible, the coffins are piled fifty deep. All about 
these mounds, the ground for miles on every side is filled with 
graves. It has been estimated that a greater number of bodies 
rest here than in the Necropolis of Thebes (Loftus). So exalted 
was the sanctity that had attached to the ancient city of Nim- 
rod, that for more than two thousand years this spot was a 
sacred burial-place, not only for the Chaldaeans, but also, it is 
thought, for the Assyrians and Babylonians, as there are no 
tombs to be found in Assyria or Upper Babylonia. 

All the oldest cities in Chaldaea are thus surrounded by vast 
cemeteries. Bodies were transported long distances by the 
Tigris and the Euphrates, that they might repose at last in sacred 
ground. A similar sentiment still impels the Mohammedans 
in the same land to carry the bodies of friends vast distances, 
in order to lay them near the shrine of some celebrated saint. 



52 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Cuneiform Writing. — We can trace the same stages of de- 
velopment in the art of writing among the Chaldseans that are 
observed in its growth among the ancient Egyptians. The 
earliest and the latest inscriptions, when compared, exhibit the 
art in all the stages of its advance from the purely pictorial 
form into the syllabic. 

We may distinguish five forms: the hieroglyphic, the hieratic, 
the archaic cuneiform, the modern cuneiform, and the cursive. 
The first and second are the same as the corresponding forms in 
Egyptian writing, and the one grew out of the other in the same 
way. The archaic cuneiform is the same as the hieratic, only 
the characters, instead of being formed of unbroken lines, are 
composed of wedge-like marks ; hence the name (from cuneus, 
a wedge). This form arose when soft tablets of clay were sub- 
stituted for stone as writing material, upon which the letters 
were impressed with a triangular stylus. The honor of the in- 
vention of this form of writing is now generally accorded to the 
Turanian Elamites, from whom it was adopted by the Chal- 
daeans. The modern cuneiform is simply an abbreviated form 
of the preceding; and the cursive is a still further simplifica- 
tion of the last. The modern cuneiform and cursive were not 
developed by the Chaldaeans, but by the Assyrians, who bor- 
rowed their system of writing, as well as many other elements 
of their culture, from the people they had conquered. 

The characters employed in all these modes of writing were 
of two kinds — ideographic and phonetic. The former were 
symbols, representing entire words or ideas ; the latter, several 
hundred in number, represented each a syllable, and thus con- 
stituted a syllabarium rather than a true alphabet. In its earliest 
stages the archaic cuneiform writing was made up largely of ideo- 
graphs ; but it gradually became more and more phonetic, until 
the syllabic characters formed the larger part of the inscription. 

Although the Chaldaeans, and the Assyrians after them, ad- 
vanced so far in the difficult art of depicting thought, still they 
failed to take the last step— to analyze the syllable into its sim- 



THE CHALDEAN MONARCHY. 53 

pie elements or sounds, and then represent each of these by a 
simple character. The honor of this achievement was left to 
another people and race. It was not until more than two 
thousand years after the first improvements had been made in 
rude picture-writing by the Chaldaeans. that the Persians,* h* 
yond the Zagros ranges, to the east of the lowland country, took 
the step which marks the crowning achievement in the develop- 
ment of the greatest of human arts. That people reduced lan- 
guage to its ultimate elements, and with thirty -six characters 
represented all its elementary sounds, and thus replaced the cum- 
brous syllabic with the pliant alphabetical system. Thus the four 
different branches of the White race — the Turanian Elamites, 
the Hamitic Chaldaeans, the Semitic Assyrians, and the Aryan 
Persians — all contributed to the grand result. So, slowly and 
painfully, are wrought out the elements of human arts and culture. 
The cuneiform mode of writing was in use about two thousand 
years, being employed by the nations in and near the Euphrates 
basin — that is, by the Chaldaeans, the Assyrians, the Baby- 
lonians, the Susianians, the Armenians, the Medes, and the 
Persians — down to the time of the conquest of the East by the 
Macedonians (about 330 B.C.). 

Books and Libraries. — The books of the Chaldaeans were 
composed of clay tablets, varying in length from one to twelve 
inches, and being about one inch thick. They were closely 
written on both sides, and often over the edges, the characters 
employed being the cuneiform, already described. These tab- 
lets embrace the greatest possible variety of subjects. There 
are mythological tablets, which hold the myths of the Chal- 
daeans respecting their divinities ; mathematical tablets, on 

* It is possible that the honor of the reduction of the hieroglyphical cunei- 
form writing to a purely alphabetical mode of representation should be given 
to the Medes rather than to the Persians. In any event, it must be allowed 
that the Persians, even though they be denied the honor of original inven- 
tors, improved and perfected the system. 



54 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

which the extraction of roots, square and cube, is fully illus- 
trated ; legal tablets, containing laws, law-cases, contracts, wills, 
loans, and various other matters of a commercial nature ; and as- 
tronomical, geographical, historical, and legendary tablets, hold- 
ins: the wisdom of the Chaldaeans in all these matters. 

Chaldsean Literature.— Periods in literature may be distin- 
guished as creative and elaborative. During a creative pe- 
riod, vast masses of literary material are originated or given 
birth ; during the elaborative period, which always follows such 
an era of production, this literature is servilely copied, imitated, 
polished, and worked over into other and usually inferior 
forms. Thus, the Homeric age in Greece was a creative pe- 
riod, which gave birth to the great epic of the " Iliad ;" while 
the several centuries immediately succeeding were simply 
elaborative— the writers and poets of that era being content 
to copy blindly the great master Homer. 

Now, from 2200 to 1800 B.C. was a creative period in Chal- 
daean literature. It was an age of marvellous literary activ- 
ity and productiveness. A vast body of myths, legends, and 
traditions was then created, which became the prized and re- 
vered inheritance of the succeeding Assyrians and Babylonians. 
The discoveries and patient labors of different scholars have 
given us, from the legendary tablets, the Chaldaean tradition 
of the Creation of the World, of the Creation and Fall of Man, 
of the Deluge, of Izdubar (Nimrud?), and of the Babel Builders. 
All of these accounts are remarkably like the Hebrew tra- 
ditions of these several matters. They are, however, not so 
simple and pure as the Bible narratives ; for, being the legends 
of a people of a polytheistic belief, they necessarily contain many 
particulars respecting the popular deities. It is thought by 
some Biblical scholars that they are the distorted copies of 
the original traditions of these matters possessed by primi- 
tive man, and which were preserved in their monotheistic 
simplicity by the Abrahamic family. 






THE CHALDEAN MONARCHY. 55 

Astronomy and Arithmetic. — In astronomy, and its associate 
science arithmetic, the early Chalclaeans made substantial prog- 
ress. The clear skies and unbroken horizon of the Chaldaean 
plains, lending an unusually brilliant aspect to the heavens, nat- 
urally led the Chaldaeans to the study of the stars. The tower- 
temples, as we have already noticed, were probably used as as- 
tronomical observatories. The careful emplacement of these 
edifices with the angles of the stages towards the cardinal 
points ; the use of sun-dials of various construction ; the divis- 
ion of the year into twelve months, which we have received as 
an unchanged inheritance from them through the Hebrews; 
and the great reputation which the Chaldaean astronomers en- 
joyed among all the nations of antiquity — all these things tes- 
tify to their attainments in astronomical science.* In arithmetic 
they made considerable progress : a tablet recently discovered 
contains the squares of the numbers from one to sixty. 

Chaldaeans as Pioneers in Civilization. — In viewing the be- 
ginnings of civilization among the primitive peoples of the Eu- 
phrates Valley, we must not look with contempt upon their rude 
buildings and their small attainments in science and culture. 
We must bear in mind that, if not absolutely pioneers in the 
arts and sciences, they inherited only the simplest rudiments 
of learning from preceding ages. The first step in civilization 
is hard to take; but, with this made, each succeeding step 
becomes easier. They were toiling at the foundations, and 
though all they did for one thousand years, from 2300 to 1300 
B.C., scarcely appears to view, still that which they laid with so 
much toil and care forms the basis upon which following ages 
have built. We shall hereafter see how the Semitic and Aryan 
races, upon the foundation laid by the Hamitic, proceeded to 
raise still higher the structure of civilization, adorning it at the 
same time with a hand nerved by a more vigorous intellectual 
life, and guided by a deeper and truer religious instinct. 

* Rawlinson's " Ancient Monarchies," vol. i. p. 101. 



56 ANCIENT HISTORY. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE ASSYRIAN MONARCHY. 
(From an unknown date to 625 B.C.) 

Introduction. — We have seen how, for about one thousand 
years — from 2300 to 1300 B.C. — the Chaldaean monarchy 
held sway over all the southern part of the Tigro-Euphrates 
Valley. Meanwhile, farther to the north, upon the banks of 
the Tigris, was growing into strength and prominence a rival 
power of another people and race — the Semitic Assyrians — to 
whom were now to be transferred,' for preservation and enrich- 
ment, the arts and sciences and primitive culture of the Chal- 
daean plains. 

In tracing the dynastic or political history of Assyria, we 
shall mention only those kings whose wide conquests or great 
works, or the strength of whose character or the greatness of 
whose misfortunes, have caused their names to live among 
Jthe renowned personages of the ancient world. 

Tiglath-Pileser I. (1130-nio b.c). — It is not until about 
two centuries after the conquest of Chaldaea by the Assyrian 
prince Tiglathi-Nin, that we find a sovereign of renown at 
the head of Assyrian affairs. This was Tiglath-Pileser L, who 
came to the throne about 1130 B.C. We know more of his 
reign than of that of any preceding king, through the fortunate 
discovery of a clay cylinder containing the royal records. It 
details at great length the various war expeditions of Tiglath- 
Pileser, and describes the great works which he constructed. 
So we can listen to the king himself, while, in his self-laudatory 



THE ASSYRIAN MONARCHY. 57 

style, he narrates his great exploits, and glories in the number 
and extent of his conquests. 

"There fell into my hands altogether," says this inscription, 
"between the commencement of my reign and my fifth year, 
forty-two countries, with their kings, from the banks of the 
river Zab to the banks of the Euphrates, the country of the 
Khatti, and the upper ocean of the setting sun [Mediter- 
ranean]. I brought them under one government ; I took 
hostages from them ; and I imposed on them tribute and 
offerings."* 

. He speaks as follows of the restoration of a temple: "In 
the beginning of my reign, Arm and Vul, the great gods, my 
lords, guardians of my steps, gave me a command to repair 
this their shrine. So I made bricks ; I levelled the earth ; . . . 
fifty feet deep I prepared the lower foundations of the temple 
of Anu and Vul. From its foundation to its roof I built it up 
better than it was before. I also built two lofty towers in hon- 
or of their noble godships ; and the holy place, a spacious hall, 
I consecrated for the convenience of their worshippers, and to 
accommodate their votaries, who were numerous as the stars 
of heaven. I repaired, and built, and completed my work. 
Outside the temple I fashioned everything with the same care 
as inside. The mound of earth on which it was built I en- 
larged like the firmament of the rising stars (?), and I beauti- 
fied the entire building. Its towers I raised to heaven, and its 
roofs I built entirely of brick." f 

The inscription closes as follows : "The list of my victories 
and the catalogue of my triumphs over foreigners hostile to 
Asshur, which Anu and Vul have granted to my arms, I have 
inscribed on my tablets and cylinders, and I have placed [to 
remain] to the last days, in the temples of my lords, Anu and 
Vul. ... In after-times, and in the latter days, if the temple of 
the Great Gods, my lords Anu and Vul, and these shrines 

* Rawlinson's " Ancient Monarchies," vol. ii. p. 68. f Ibid. p. 69. 

4 



58 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

should become old and fall into decay, may the Prince who 
comes after me repair the ruins ! May he raise altars and sac- 
rifice victims before my tablets and cylinders, and may he set 
them up again in their places, and may he inscribe his name 
on them together with my name ! As Anu and Vul, the Great 
Gods, have ordained, may he worship honestly with a good 
heart and full trust ! 

"Whoever shall abrade or injure my tablets and cylinders, 
or shall moisten them with water, or scorch them with fire, or 
expose them to the air, or in the holy place of God shall assign 
them a place where they cannot be seen or understood, or shall 
erase the writing and inscribe his own name, or shall divide 
the sculptures (?) and break them off my tablets, may Anu and 
Vul, the Great Gods, my lords, assign his name to perdition ! 
May they curse him with an irrevocable curse! May they 
cause his sovereignty to perish ! May they pluck out the sta- 
bility of the throne of his empire! Let not his offspring sur- 
vive him in the kingdom ! Let his servants be taken ! Let his 
troops be defeated ! Let him fly vanquished before his enemy! 
May Vul in his fury tear up the produce of his land ! . . . For 
one day may he not be called happy ! May his name and his 
race perish !" 

Asshur-izer-pal (883-858 b.c). — We pass an interval of 
more than two centuries, and then find upon the throne As- 
shur-izer-pal, under whom the Assyrian Empire enjoyed an era 
of unusual magnificence. This king made several expeditions 
into the surrounding countries, punishing cruelly, by crucifixion 
and burning, all that dared resist his authority. 

But while, like all the Assyrian kings, cruel and unrelenting 
in war, he seemed not insensible to the gentler influences of 
peace ; for he was a generous patron of sculpture and archi- 
tecture. Many of the cities of his empire were adorned by 
him with magnificent palaces and temples. Of the capital 
Calah, overlooking the Tigris, which city Asshur-izer-pal em- 



THE ASSYRIAN MONARCHY. 59 

bellished with his most splendid edifices, Rawlinson, forming 
his picture from the nature and extent of the ruins, declares 
that "when the setting sun lighted up the view with the gor- 
geous hues seen only under an Eastern sky, it must have seemed 
to the traveller who beheld it for the first time like a vision from 
fairy-land." 

Shalmaneser II. (858-823 bc.). — Asshur-izer-pal was fol- 
lowed by Shalmaneser II., who reigned thirty-five years. Dur- 
ing his rule this warlike king made between twenty and thirty 
military expeditions against various countries, and held in 
subjection almost all the peoples between the Mediterranean 
and the mountains of Persia. One of the most significant 
events of his reign was the submission to his power of the king- 
dom of Israel, which left Jerusalem exposed to the tides of As- 
syrian invasion which, in succeeding reigns, threatened to over- 
whelm the little kingdom of Judah, and blot out her name 
from the now short list of independent states in Western Asia. 

Vul-Lush III. and Semiramis. — Vul-Lush, who reigned from 
810 to 781 B.C., has a place in the list of Assyrian monarchs 
noticed by us, not because of anything remarkable in his own 
character or achievements, but because of the mythical great- 
ness of his queen. 

Probably to strengthen his claim to the provinces of Baby- 
lonia, which country seems at this time to have sustained a sort 
of vassal relation to the Assyrian kings, Vul-Lush married a 
Babylonian princess, Sammuramit by name, supposed to be 
identical with the renowned Semiramis of the Greek writers. 
The many and extravagant stories told by Ctesias and Herod- 
otus of her great conquests and vast architectural works are 
now known to be fabulous. All these myths and legends 
gathered about her name on account of the very unusual cir- 
cumstance of her having enjoyed with her royal husband a sort 
of co-sovereignty in the government. Hers is the only name 



60 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

of a queen that is mentioned in the records of the Assyrian 
kings. 

Sargon (722-705 b.c). — Sargon was one of the greatest of 
Assyrian conquerors. In 722 B.C. he captured Samaria, the 
siege of which had been commenced by Shalmaneser IV., and 
carried away the Ten Tribes into captivity beyond the Tigris. 
From this time the kingdom of Israel disappears from among 
the states of the East. The captives were scattered among 
the cities of Media, and probably became, for the most part, 
merged with the population of that province. During this 
reign the Egyptians and their allies, in the first encounter be- 
tween the empires of the Euphrates and the Nile Valley, suf- 
fered a severe defeat. 

Sargon was a famous builder. Near the foot of the Persian 
hills he founded a large city, which he named for himself; and 
there he erected a royal residence, described in the inscrip- 
tions as "a palace of incomparable magnificence," the site of 
which is now preserved by the vast mounds of Khorsabad. 

Sennacherib (705-681 b.c). — Sennacherib, the son of Sar- 
gon, came to the throne 705 B.C. We must accord to him the 
first place of renown among all the great names of the Assyr- 
ian Empire. His name, connected as it is with the narrative of 
Jerusalem's marvellous deliverance from the power of the As- 
syrian army, and with many of the most wonderful discoveries 
among the ruined palaces of Nineveh, has become as familiar 
to the ear as that of Nebuchadnezzar in the story of Babylon. 

The fulness of the royal inscriptions of this reign enables 
us to permit Sennacherib, like Tiglath-Pileser, to tell us in his 
own words of his great works and military expeditions. Re- 
specting the decoration of Nineveh, he says: " I raised again all 
the edifices of Nineveh, my royal city; I reconstructed all its 
old streets, and widened those that were too narrow. I have 
made the whole town a city shining like the sun." 



THE ASSYRIAN MONARCHY. 6 1 

Concerning an expedition against Hezekiah, King of Judah, 
he says: "I took forty-six of his strong fenced cities; and of 
the smaller towns which were scattered about I took and plun- 
dered a countless number. And from these places I captured 
and carried off as spoil 200,150 people, old and young, male 
and female, together with horses and mares, asses and camels, 
oxen and sheep, a countless multitude. And Hezekiah him- 
self I shut up in Jerusalem, his capital city, like a bird in a 
cage, building towers round the city to hem him in, and rais- 
ing banks of earth against the gates, so as to prevent escape."* 

This siege resulted in the submission of Hezekiah and in 
his rendering homage and tribute to the Assyrian king. It was 
during another expedition, while aiming a defiant and revenge- 
ful stroke at both Egypt and Jerusalem, that his army, upon 
the eastern frontier of the former country, was smitten by an 
unseen hand, and "the king returned home to Nineveh, shorn 
of his glory, with the shattered remains of his great host, and 
cast that proud capital into a state of despair and grief which 
the genius of an ^schylus might have rejoiced to depict, but 
which no less powerful pen could adequately portray." 

Esarhaddon (681-668 B.C.). — Esarhaddon, son of Sennach- 
erib, was a great warrior and a great builder. He performed 
the feat, rarely achieved by any conqueror, of penetrating to 
and capturing the cities of Central Arabia. During another 
campaign he led his army up the Nile to the Plain of Thebes. 
He built four royal residences, and many temples in different 
cities of his empire. Sickness falling upon him, he abdicated 
in favor of his son Asshur-bani-pal. 

Asshur-bani-pal (668-626 ? b.c.).— This king is distinguish- 
ed for his magnificent patronage of art and literature. During 
his reign Assyria enjoyed her Augustan age. Under the inspira- 
tion of his example and the encouragement of his favor, a great 
* Rawlinson's " Ancient Monarchies," vol. ii. p. 161. 



62 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

literary enthusiasm sprang up at Nineveh ; and within the walls 
of his palace in that city was collected the largest and most 
important library of the old Semitic world. But Asshur-bani-pal 
was also possessed of a warlike spirit. He broke to pieces, 
with a terrible energy, in swift campaigns, the enemies of his 
empire. All the scenes of his sieges and battles he caused to 
be sculptured on the walls of his palace at Nineveh. These 
pictured panels are now in the British Museum. They are a 
perfect Iliad in stone. 

Saracus (6261-62$ b.c). — Saracus was the last of the long 
line of Assyrian kings. His reign was short, measured by a 
single year, and that filled with misfortune for himself and his 
kingdom. For nearly or quite seven centuries the Ninevite 
kings had lorded it over the East. There was scarcely a state 
in all Western Asia that had not, during this time, felt the 
weight of their conquering arms; nor a people that had not 
suffered their cruel punishments, or tasted the bitterness of 
their servitude. 

But now swift misfortunes were bearing clown upon the op- 
pressor from every quarter. The Scythian hordes, breaking 
through the mountain gates on the north, spread a new terror 
throughout the upper Assyrian provinces; from the mountain 
defiles on the east issued the armies of the recent-grown em- 
pire of the Aryan Medes, led by the renowned Cyaxares; from 
the southern lowlands, anxious to aid in the overthrow of the 
hated oppressor, the revolted Babylonians, led by the traitor 
Nabopolassar, joined the Medes as allies, and together they 
laid close siege to the Assyrian capital. The "gates of the 
river" were broken by an unusual inundation of the Tigris; 
a section of the city wall was undermined, and a breach thus 
prepared for the enemy. Saracus, in his despair, is said to 
have erected a funeral pyre within one of the courts of his 
palace, and, mounting the pile with the members of his family, 
to have perished with them in the flames. 



THE ASSYRIAN MONARCHY. 63 

Thus, amid engulfing waters and the smoke of the pyre of 
the last Ninevite king, the proud Assyrian capital sank into un- 
sightly heaps of earth and rubbish (625 B.C.). Four hundred 
years before Christ, when Xenophon with his Ten Thousand 
Greeks, in his memorable retreat, passed the spot, even the 
name of Nineveh seems to have been forgotten ; for the ruins 
were pointed out to him as those of "Mespila." 



64 ANCIENT HISTORY. 



CHAPTER VI. 

INSTITUTIONS, ARCHITECTURE, AND LITERATURE OF THE AS- 
SYRIANS. 

Nature of the Assyrian Empire. — The Assyrian state is a 
good type of all the great empires that have succeeded one an- 
other upon the soil of Asia. It was simply a heterogeneous 
mass of peoples and races, held together by external force, and 
united by no inner bonds of religion or customs or language. 
Two things were exacted, by the predominating state, of the 
vassal nations — tribute and homage. Attempts, indeed, were 
made by some of the Assyrian kings to consolidate the varied 
elements which wide conquests had brought within the limits 
of the empire into something like a national unity. But these 
efforts did not proceed from a desire to promote the welfare of 
the peoples over whom they ruled ; they had in view simply 
the strengthening of the power of the dominant state, and the 
riveting more securely of the chains of the subject nations. 
The sovereigns endeavored to Assyrianize the remotest prov- 
inces by the wholesale transference of the population of a con- 
quered country to a new region, in order that, with the old ties 
of country and home thus severed, the new generation might 
the more easily forget past wrongs and old traditions and cus- 
toms, and become blended with the peoples about them. Thus, 
the Ten Tribes of Israel were carried away from their homes, 
and scattered among the Median towns, where they became so 
mingled with the native population of the country as to be in- 
quired after even to this day as " the lost tribes." 

It was inevitable that a kingdom of this nature should be 
ever threatening dissolution the moment the organizing genius 



INSTITUTIONS, ARCHITECTURE, ETC., OF THE ASSYRIANS. 65 

that had consolidated it was embarrassed by accident or removed 
by death. Hence the constant efforts necessary to reconquer 
revolted provinces, and to refasten the chains upon states that 
were constantly breaking away from the central authority. And 
hence, also, the disturbances and uprisings that accompanied 
almost every dynastic change. 

Character of the Assyrians. — The Assyrian character was 
most cruel and barbarous. Although possessing deep religious 
feeling, and having a real love for art and literature, still the 
Assyrian monarchs often displayed in the treatment of prisoners 
the disposition of savages. In common with most Asiatics, 
they had no respect for the body, but subjected captives to the 
most terrible mutilations. The sculptured marbles taken from 
the palaces exhibit the cruel tortures inflicted upon prisoners: 
some are being flayed alive ; the eyes of others are being bored 
out with the point of a spear; and still others are having their 
tongues torn out. An inscription by Asshur-nasir-pal, found in 
one of the palaces at Nimrud, runs as follows: "Their men, 
young and old, I took prisoners. Of some I cut off the feet 
and hands ; of others I cut off the noses, ears, and lips ; of the 
young men's ears I made a heap ; of the old men's heads I 
built a minaret. I exposed their heads as a trophy in front of 
their city. The male children arid the female children I burned 
in the flames."* 

Royal Sports. — The Assyrian king gloried in being, like the 

* In strange contrast to the tone of this inscription is a prayer of King 
Asshur-bani-pal which reads thus : " May the look of pity that shines in thine 
eternal face dispel my griefs. May I never feel the anger and wrath of the 
God. May my omissions and my sins be wiped out. May I find reconcilia- 
tion with him, for I am the servant of his power, the author of the great 
gods. May thy powerful face come to my help : may it shine like heaven, 
and bless me with happiness and abundance of riches." See Lenormant's 
I Ancient History of the East," vol. i. p. 418. 

4* 



66 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

great Nimrod, "a mighty hunter before the Lord." In his in- 
scriptions the wild beasts he has slain are as carefully enu- 
merated as the cities he has captured.* The monuments are 
covered with sculptures that represent the king engaged in 
the favorite royal sport. We see him slaying lions, bulls, and 
boars, as well as less dangerous animals of the chase, with 
which the uncultivated tracts of the country appear to have 
abounded. 

Asshur-izer-pal had at Nineveh a menagerie, or hunting-park, 
filled with various animals, many of which were sent him as 
tribute by vassal princes. During a single hunting expedition 
into the desert regions of Mesopotamia, this monarch, accord- 
ing to his own inscriptions, slew three hundred and sixty lions, 
two hundred and fifty-seven wild cattle, and thirty buffaloes, 
besides capturing for his menagerie an immense number of 
ostriches, bears, and hyenas. t 

The Royal Cities. — The capital of the Assyrian monarchy, 
like that of almost every other empire in Asia, was of a migra- 
tory character. There are scattered along the course of the 
Tigris the ruins of three royal cities — Asshur, Calneh, and Nin- 
eveh, or, as called at the present time, Kileh-Sherghat, Nimrud, 
and Koyunjik. Away from the Tigris, about ten miles to the 
northeast of Nineveh, is the mound of Khorsabad, which marks 
the site of the royal residence of Sargon. 

The ruins of these royal cities of Assyria are very unlike 
those of the capital cities of Egypt. Enormous grass-grown 
mounds, enclosed by long-crumbled ramparts, alone mark the 
sites of the great cities of the Assyrian kings. The character 
of the remains arises from the nature of the building material. 
Palaces, city walls, and temples were constructed chiefly of sun- 
dried bricks, so that the generation that raised them had scarce- 



* Lenormant's " Ancient History of the East," vol. i. p. 431. 
t Rawlinson's " Ancient Monarchies," vol. i. p. 91. 



INSTITUTIONS, ARCHITECTURE, ETC., OF THE ASSYRIANS. 67 

ly passed away before they began to sink down into heaps of 
rubbish. The rains of many centuries have beaten down and 
deeply furrowed these mounds, while the grass has crept over 
them and made green alike the palaces of the kings and the 
temples of the gods. 

The Ruins of Nineveh. — Lying upon the left bank of the Up- 
per Tigris is a large quadrangular enclosure surrounded by 
heavy earthen ramparts, about eight miles in circuit. This is 
the site of ancient Nineveh, the immense enclosing ridges being 
the ruined city walls. These ramparts are still, in their crum- 
bled condition, about fifty feet high (Xenophon says that they 
were one hundred and fifty feet high when he saw them), and 
average about one hundred and fifty in width. The lower part 
of the wall was constructed of solid stone masonry ; the upper 
portion, of dried brick. This upper and frailer part, crumbling 
into earth, has completely buried the stone basement. The 
Turks quarry the stone from these old walls for their modern 
buildings. The bridge that spans the Tigris at Mosul (a na- 
tive town just opposite the ruins of Nineveh) is constructed of 
stone dug from these ancient ramparts. 

The regularity of the old walls is broken by large heaps of 
rubbish, which mark the position of the city gates and their 
flanking towers. In one of these mounds, excavated by Layard, 
were found several colossal winged bulls, the wardens of the 
entrance. The stone pavement was discovered worn into deep 
ruts by the chariot-wheels. 

But the most interesting feature of the ruins is the great 
palace-mound called by the natives Koyunjik. This mound 
covers an area of one hundred acres, and is from seventy to 
ninety feet high. It is traversed by deep ravines, worn in its 
mass by centuries of storms. Upon this great platform stood 
several of the most splendid palaces of the Ninevite kings. 

Palace-Mounds and Palaces. — In order to give a certain dig- 



(38 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

nity to the royal residence, to secure the fresh breezes, and to 
render them more easily defended, the Assyrians, as well as 
the Babylonians and Persians, lifted their palaces upon lofty 
artificial terraces, or platforms. These eminences, which ap- 
pear like natural flat-topped hills, were constructed with an 
almost incredible expenditure of human labor. Out of the 
material composing the mound of Koyunjik at Nineveh could 
be built four pyramids as large as that of Cheops. One or 
more of these gigantic mounds marks the site of each of the 
royal cities already mentioned. 

The tops of these platforms are loaded with the debris of 
the Assyrian palaces. The swiftness with which the mud- 
walled edifices fell into dilapidation, an ambition to surpass all 
predecessors, and a superstitious fear of occupying the pal- 
ace of a deceased monarch led each king, upon his accession 
to the throne, to commence the erection of a new royal resi- 
dence. Sometimes an entirely new site was chosen ; but often- 
times the new palace was erected alongside the old upon the 
same platform. 

The group of buildings constituting the royal residence was 
often of enormous extent : the various courts, halls, corridors, 
and chambers of the Palace of Sennacherib, which surmount- 
ed the platform at Nineveh, covered an area of over ten acres. 
The palaces were usually one-storied. The walls, constructed 
chiefly of dried brick, were immensely thick and heavy. The 
rooms and galleries were plastered with stucco, or panelled 
with precious woods, or lined with enamelled bricks. The main 
halls, however, were faced with slabs of alabaster, covered with 
sculptures and inscriptions, the illustrated narrative of the wars 
and labors of the monarch. At the entrance of these panelled 
halls, as if to guard the approach, were stationed the colossal 
human-headed bulls. 

The immense courts upon which the chambers opened were 
the most important feature of the palace, as is still the case in 
all Oriental residences, and were sumptuously decorated with 



INSTITUTIONS, ARCHITECTURE, ETC., OF THE ASSYRIANS. 69 

symbolic sculptures, and surrounded with carved and painted 
balconies, supported usually upon wood columns encased in 
bronze plates, and crowned with capitals that were the original 
of the Grecian Ionic. These superb courts were used on spe- 
cial state occasions ; the assembly being protected from the 
sun and weather by a rich awning, as the Roman emperors in 
later times shielded the multitudes in the amphitheatre. 

An important adjunct of the palace was the temple, a copy 
of the tower-temples of the Chaldaeans. Its position is marked 
at present by a lofty conical mound, rising amidst and over- 
looking the palace ruins. 

Assyrian Explorations. — Upon the decay of the Assyrian pal- 
aces, the material forming the upper part of the thick walls 
completely buried and protected all the lower portion of the 
structure. In this way their sculptures and inscriptions have 
been preserved through so many centuries, till brought to light 
by the recent excavations of French and English antiquarians. 

In 1844 M. Botta, the French consul at Mosul, excavated the 
mound of Khorsabad, and astonished the world with most won- 
derful specimens of Assyrian art from the Palace of Sargon. 
The sculptured and lettered slabs were removed to the Mu- 
seum of the Louvre in Paris. Some years later, Layard disen- 
tombed the Palace of Sennacherib, and those of other kings at 
Nineveh and Calneh, and enriched the British Museum with 
the treasures of his search. These disentombed palaces have 
thrown as strong a light upon the arts and history of the ancient 
Assyrians as the excavated cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum 
have shed upon the arts and domestic life of the Romans. 

The Royal Library at Nineveh. — Within the Palace of Asshur- 
bani-pal at Nineveh, Layard discovered what is known as the 
Royal Library. There were two chambers, the floors of which 
were heaped with books, like the Chaldaean tablets already de- 
scribed. The number of books in the collection has been esti- 



70 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

mated at ten thousand. The writing upon some of the tablets 
is so minute that it cannot be read without the aid of a magni- 
fying-glass. We learn from the inscriptions that a librarian 
had charge of the collection. Catalogues of the books have 
been found, made out on clay tablets. The library was open 
to the public, for an inscription says, " I [Asshur-bani-pal] wrote 
upon the tablets ; I placed them in my palace for the instruc- 
tion of my people." 

Asshur-bani-pal, as we have already learned, was the Augus- 
tus of Assyria. It was under his patronage and direction that 
most of the books were prepared and placed in the Ninevite 
collection. The greater part of these were copies of older 
Chaldaean tablets ; for the literature of the Assyrians, as well 
as their arts and sciences, was borrowed almost in a body from 
the Chaldaeans. All the old libraries of the low-country were 
ransacked, and copies of their tablets made for the Royal Li- 
brary at Nineveh. In this way was preserved much of the 
early Chaldaean literature which would otherwise have been 
lost to the world. 

The Tablets and their Contents. — The Assyrian tablets were 
in form like the Chaldaean. Those holding records of special 
importance were, after having been once written over and 
baked, covered with a thin coating of clay, the matter written 
in duplicate, and the tablets again baked. If the outer writing 
were defaced by accident or altered by design, the removal of 
the outer coating would at once show the true text. 

The contents of the tablets embrace a great variety of sub- 
jects; the larger part, however, are lexicons and treatises on 
grammar, and various other works intended as text-books for 
scholars. Perhaps the most curious of the tablets yet found 
are notes issued by the government and made redeemable in 
gold and silver on presentation at the king's treasury. Tablets 
of this character have been found bearing date as early as 625 
b.c. It would seem from this that the Assyrians had very cor- 



INSTITUTIONS, ARCHITECTURE, ETC., OF THE ASSYRIANS. 71 

rect notions of the nature of paper (tablet) money. Others of 
the books treat of laws, of chronology and history, and of the 
natural sciences. In natural history we find tablets exhibiting 
classifications into families and genera of all the animals in- 
habiting the different provinces of the Assyrian Empire — a 
common and scientific name being attached to each species. 
" No doubt," says Lenormant, " the great divisions of this clas- 
sification are those of a very rudimentary science, but we may 
well be astonished to find that the Assyrians had already in- 
vented a scientific nomenclature similar in principle to that of 
Linnaeus." 

Influence of Assyria upon Civilization. — The recent excava- 
tions among the Assyrian palaces, and the discovery of the 
key to the cuneiform inscriptions,* which has opened to us 

*"Many will be interested in a more particular account of the method in 
which the first steps in cuneiform decipherment were effected. . . . While 
Professor Grotefend was studying some Persepolitan inscriptions (copied by 
Niebuhr) in his study in Europe, Rawlinson was at work upon the tablet 
of Ilamadan, amid the deserts of Persia. Each solved the problem inde- 
pendently ; at least, each took the first steps in the way of a true solution 
without any aid or suggestion from the other. Both arrived at the same 
result in a strikingly similar manner. We will give very briefly the way in 
which Rawlinson was led to his discovery, condensing from his own account 
as given in a paper entitled ' Memoir on Cuneiform Inscriptions,' in Journals 
of the Asiatic Society, vol. x. The tablets which Rawlinson chose for his 
work were the famous Behistun inscriptions, comprising two trilingual 
records by Darius Hystaspis and his son Xerxes. He observed these in- 
scriptions to be identical throughout, save in certain groups of characters. 
There are two of these groups in each tablet, but the last group of one was 
the same as the first group of the other. This fact suggested to Rawlinson 
that the groups represented proper names — three Persian kings, following 
one another successively upon the throne. Taking at random three names 
— Hystaspes, Darius, and Xerxes — he applied them to the groups. Fortu- 
nately, he had lighted upon the right names, and was able to determine the 
power of several letters. Other proper names gave additional letters ; and 
thus an alphabet was slowly elaborated. And thus the clew to the decipher- 
ment of the cuneiform writings, the most important of all philological dis- 



72 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

the treasures of the libraries of the Euphrates Valley, have 
greatly modified our views of the ancient empires of the East 
and the influence of Asiatic art and culture upon European 
civilization. As many of the elements of our modern civiliza- 
tion were received as an inheritance from Greece and Rome, 
so in turn, we now find, was their culture enriched by valua- 
ble gifts from the older civilizations of the East. As the Tiber 
and the Ilissus are classic streams to us, so were the Nile and 
the Euphrates classic rivers to the Greeks and the Romans. 
Thence these received much that the Oriental peoples had in- 
vented or sought out in art, science, and philosophy. 

The Greeks received the germs of their mimetic or sculpt- 
ural art from the Euphrates by the way of Asia Minor. " Be- 
tween the works of Ninevite artists and the early works of the 
Greeks," says Lenormant, "even to the ^Eginetans, we may 
observe an astonishing connection; the celebrated primitive 
bass-relief at Athens known by the common name of the 'War- 
rior of Marathon ' seems as if detached from the walls of Khor- 
sabad or Koyunjik."* But the genius of the Greek artists 
always transformed what they borrowed. Beneath their touch 
"the hard and rigid lines of Assyrian sculpture," as Layard 
says, " were converted into the flowing draperies and classic 
forms of the highest order of art." 

Fergusson sums up the results of his studies among the pal- 
aces of Nineveh and Persepolis by asserting, "Egypt may, in- 
deed, have been the schoolmistress from whom the ancient 
world derived half her science and her art ; but the nations 
from whom we are descended were born in Assyria, and out of 
her they brought all their sympathies, all their innate civiliza- 
tion."! And Rawlinson, after acquainting himself with the 



coveries after that of the key to the hieroglyphics of Egypt, was found by 
what has been termed a series of ' happy guesses.' " — Myers's " Remains of 
Lost Empires," p. 130, note. 

* Lenormant's " Ancient History of the East," vol. i. p. 465. 

f Fergusson's " Palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis," p. 4. 



INSTITUTIONS, ARCHITECTURE, ETC., OF THE ASSYRIANS. 73 

arts and sciences of the Euphrates Valley, and the contents of 
the Assyrian libraries, declares that " it was from the East . . . 
that Greece derived her architecture, her sculpture, her science, 
her philosophy, her mathematical knowledge — in a word, her 
intellectual life." * 

* Rawrinson's " Ancient Monarchies," vol. iii. p. 76. 



74 ANCIENT HISTORY. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE BABYLONIAN MONARCHY. 
(625-538 B.C.) 

The Country and People. — The Babylonian monarchy occu- 
pied the lowland, or alluvial tract, of the Tigris and Euphrates 
valley, the seat of the early Chaldaean Kingdom. Although 
seventeen hundred years had passed since Nimrod made his 
conquests and Urukh built his temples, during which time the 
rivers had built up a considerable tract of new land at the head 
of the Gulf, and skilful irrigation had reclaimed wide strips 
of land from the inroads of the desert sands on the Arabian 
frontier, still, notwithstanding these changes, it will be suffi- 
ciently accurate for us to say that the Chaldaean and Baby- 
lonian monarchies grew up and flourished upon the same soil 
and beneath the same sky. 

This fact will explain many resemblances which we shall 
not fail to notice between the Chaldaeans and Babylonians, in 
their arts, manners, customs, religion, and government. And 
yet we shall be constantly reminded of Assyria ; for during the 
period of Assyrian supremacy, Babylonia being a mere depend- 
ency of the northern empire, the language and many of the 
customs of the conquerors were introduced into the lower coun- 
try, and a gradual transformation took place in the population. 
The people became at last completely Assyrianized. So some, 
viewing the Babylonians as simply the changed descendants 
of the Chaldaeans, call this new empire, which we term the 
Babylonian, the Later Chaldaean.* 

* The ethnic character of the early Chaldaeans, and their relation to the 



THE BABYLONIAN MONARCHY. 75 

Babylonian Affairs from 1300 to 625 b.c. — During the six 
centuries and more that intervened between the conquest of 
the old Chaldaean monarchy by the Assyrian king Tiglathi- 
Nin and the successful revolt of the low countries under 
Nabopolassar, the Babylonian peoples bore very impatiently the 
Assyrian yoke. Again and again they made violent efforts to 
throw it off; and in several instances they succeeded, and for 
a time enjoyed home rulers. But for the most part the whole 
country as far as the " Sea," as the Persian Gulf is called in 
the inscriptions, was a dependency of the great overshadowing 
empire of the north. 

Two names, however, appear during this period which we 
should fix in our minds before we proceed to speak of the 
great kings of the later Babylonian monarchy. These are 
Nabonassar and Merodach-Baladan. The former reigned in 
Babylon about one hundred years before the overthrow of 
Nineveh (from 747 to 733 B.C.). He was evidently a man of 
great force of character ; for under him Babylon succeeded in 
freeing herself from the Assyrian yoke, and enjoyed a short- 
lived independence. Nabonassar destroyed the records of the 
kings that preceded him, probably because he thought they re- 
flected no glory on his country. Consequently, following ages 
were obliged to reckon dates from his reign, which was called 
the " Era of Nabonassar." 

Merodach-Baladan (721-709 B.C.) is brought to our notice 
because it was he who, when Hezekiah, King of Judaea, was 
sick, and it was reported in Babylon that, as a sign of his re- 
covery, the shadow had gone back several degrees on the dial 
of Ahaz, sent commissioners to Jerusalem, ostensibly to con- 
gratulate the Hebrew monarch on his recovery, and to make 

later Babylonians, has been a matter of much discussion, but the facts are 
now very satisfactorily established, as above indicated. History abounds in 
instances of such transformation wrought on both conquered and conquer- 
ing races. A whole series of words witnesses the fact ; for instance, " Sem* 
itized," " Assyrianized, " Hellenized," " Romanized." 



76 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

inquiry respecting the reported astronomical wonder, a matter 
in which the Chaldaean astrologers would be naturally inter- 
ested. From what followed, it is thought that the embassy was 
really a political one, having for its object the forming of an 
alliance, embracing Judah, Egypt, and Babylonia, against the 
Assyrian king. 

Nabopolassar (625-604 B.C.). — Nabopolassar was the first 
king of what is properly called the Babylonian monarchy. 
When troubles and misfortunes began to thicken about the 
last Assyrian king, Saracus, he intrusted to the care of Nabo- 
polassar, as his viceroy, the towns and provinces of the South. 
The chance now presented of obtaining a crown proved too 
great a temptation for the satrap's fidelity to his master. He 
leagued with Cyaxares against his sovereign. For his treachery 
he received a double reward — the throne of Babylon for him- 
self; and for his little son, the prince Nebuchadnezzar, he re- 
ceived as a bride the young and beautiful princess Amytis, 
daughter of the Median king. 

Nabopolassar in his old age intrusted the conduct of impor- 
tant expeditions to his son Nebuchadnezzar, whose relations 
to his royal sire, and his brilliant victories over his father's 
enemies, remind us of the " Black Prince " and Edward III. of 
England. 

Nebuchadnezzar (604-561 B.C.). — Nebuchadnezzar was far 
away from Babylon, either in Southern Palestine or in Egypt, 
chastising Pharaoh-Necho for an invasion of Syria, when intel- 
ligence reached him of his father's death. He acted with that 
quick decision and energy which characterized all his subse- 
quent life. Leaving his army to be led back to Babylonia by 
the usual military route up through Syria and around the north- 
ern edge of the desert, he himself, with a few attendants, pushed 
directly across the desert, and in a few days reached the capital, 
before any plots against his succession could be perfected. 



THE BABYLONIAN MONARCHY. 77 

With the energy of a Napoleon, Nebuchadnezzar now began 
the conduct of his brilliant campaigns, and the superintendence 
of those gigantic works that rendered Babylon the wonder of 
the Greeks, and have caused her name to pass into all histories 
and literatures as the synonym of material power and magnifi- 
cence. 

Jerusalem, having four times revolted, was as often subdued ; 
the temple was stripped of its sacred vessels of silver and of gold, 
which were carried away to Babylon; the people, save a mis- 
erable remnant, were also borne away into the "Great Cap- 
tivity." Zedekiah, under whom the last revolt took place, was 
punished by having his eyes put out, after having seen " his 
sons slain before his face." The story of Daniel belongs to 
this period. 

With Jerusalem subdued, Nebuchadnezzar pushed with all 
his forces the siege of the Phoenician city of Tyre, whose in- 
vestment had been commenced several years before. After a 
siege of thirteen years, the city fell into the hands of the Baby- 
lonian king, and his authority was now undisputed from the 
Zagros Mountains to the Mediterranean. 

The numerous captives of his many wars, embracing peoples 
of almost every nation in Western Asia, enabled Nebuchad- 
nezzar to rival even the Egyptian Rameses in the execution 
of enormous works requiring an immense expenditure of hu- 
man labor. The works which we may with very great cer- 
tainty ascribe to this prince are the following: the repair of the 
Great Walls of Babylon ; the Great Palace in the royal quarter 
of the city ; the famous Hanging Gardens ; vast quays along 
the Euphrates, to confine it in its course through the capital ; 
and gigantic reservoirs, canals, and various engineering works, 
embracing a vast system of irrigation that reached every part 
of Babylonia. In addition to all these works, the indefatigable 
monarch seems to have either rebuilt or repaired almost every 
city and temple throughout the entire country. There are said 
to be at least a hundred sites in the tract immediately about 



78 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Babylon which give evidence, by inscribed bricks bearing his 
legend, of the marvellous activity and energy of this monarch.* 
In the midst of all these gigantic undertakings, surrounded 
by a brilliant court of councillors and flatterers, the reason of 
the king was suddenly and mysteriously clouded. f After a pe- 
riod the cloud passed away, " the glory of his kingdom, his honor, 
and brightness returned unto him." But it was the splendor 
of the evening ; for the old monarch soon after died at the age 
of eighty, worn out by the toils and cares of a reign of forty-four 
years, the longest and most memorable and instructive in the 
annals of the Assyrian and Babylonian kings. 

Successors of Nebuchadnezzar (561-555 b.c.). — The reigns 
of Evil-Merodach (son of Nebuchadnezzar), Neriglissar, and 
Labossoracus (Laborosoarchod) were all short and uneventful. 
The first and last both met with violent deaths. With Labos- 
soracus ended the dynasty of Nabopolassar. 

The Fall of Babylon.— In 555 b.c, Nabonadius, one of the 
nobles that had conspired against the life of the last sovereign, 
was placed upon the throne. He seems to have associated 
with him in the government his son Belshazzar, who shared 
with his father the duties and honors of royalty, apparently on 
terms of equal co-sovereignty. 

To the east of the Valley of the Tigris and the Euphrates, 
beyond the ranges of the Zagros, there had been growing up 
an Aryan kingdom, the Medo - Persian, which, at the time 
where we have now arrived, had excited by its aggressive 

* Rawlinson's " Ancient Monarchies," vol. iii. p. 57. 

t " Nebuchadnezzar fell a victim to that mental aberration which has of- 
ten proved the penalty of despotism, but in the strange and degrading form 
to which physicians have given the name of lycanthropy ; in which the 
patient, fancying himself a beast, rejects clothing and ordinary food, and 
even (as in this case) the shelter of a roof, disuses articulate speech, and 
sometimes persists in going on all-fours."— Smith's " Ancient History of 
the East," p. 357. 



THE BABYLONIAN MONARCHY. 79 

spirit the alarm of all the nations of Western Asia. For pur- 
poses of mutual defence, the King of Babylon, and Croesus, the 
famous monarch of Lydia, a state of Asia Minor, formed an 
alliance against Cyrus, the strong and ambitious sovereign of 
the Medes and Persians. This league awakened the resent- 
ment of Cyrus, and after punishing Croesus, and depriving him 
of his kingdom, he collected his forces to chastise the Babylo- 
nian king. 

It is related that, while the Persian army was crossing the 
Gnydes, a river that separated the frontiers of the Persian and 
Babylonian empires, one of the sacred white horses attached 
to the chariot of Ormazd was drowned ; and that Cyrus, to pun- 
ish the insolence of the .river, set his soldiers to work and dug 
three hundred and sixty channels, whereby the waters of the 
stream were dispersed and absorbed in the sands of the desert. 
The story is not an improbable one ; for we know that Xerxes 
scourged the Hellespont for breaking to pieces his bridge of 
boats. The Persian kings entertained the idea that the powers 
of nature ought to be obedient to them and subservient to their 
wishes and plans. 

With the insolent river chastised, Cyrus advanced into the 
plain of Babylonia. Nabonadius risked a battle in the open 
field, but his army was scattered and driven within the walls 
of the capital. The king himself, however, with a part of his 
forces, took refuge in the city of Borsippa, a little to the south 
of Babylon. The prince, Belshazzar, had thus devolved upon 
him the defence of the capital. 

Had the Babylonians been vigilant, it is very doubtful 
whether Cyrus would have been able to reduce the city to sub- 
mission, so strong were its walls and so well provided were its 
inhabitants with provisions for a long siege. But the youthful 
Belshazzar, insolent in his fancied security, neglected even the 
most ordinary measures of precaution. The river gates, which 
led into the heart of the city from the quays along the banks 
of the Euphrates, were, it would seem, left open or improperly 



80 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

guarded. At the dead of night, when the young king and all his 
court were giving themselves up to song and revelry, attendant 
upon the celebration of a great Babylonian festival, Cyrus, hav- 
ing previously dug with great labor immense channels, turned 
the course of the Euphrates, which ran directly through the city 
enclosure, and then led his troops along the river bed till within 
the line of the ramparts. Upon mounting the river steps, the 
soldiers found, as they had hoped, the gates unguarded, and in 
a few moments were in the streets of the capital. The cry of 
alarm ran along the broad avenues,* and at last fell upon the 
affrighted ears of the revellers in the palace. To add to their 
dismay, a warning hand, it is said, appeared against the wall, 
and traced there the words Mene, ?nene, tekel, uj>/iarsm, which 
Daniel, hastily called, interpreted to the king as meaning, 
" God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. Thou art 
weighed in the balances, and art found wanting ; thy kingdom 
is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians." "In that 
night was Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldaeans, slain "f 

( 53 8 B.C.). 

Nabonadius, shut up in Borsippa, yielded to inevitable fate 
and surrendered to Cyrus, who not only spared his life, but 
generously gave him a position of trust and honor in his king- 
dom. That kingdom now embraced the greater part of West- 
ern Asia. 

The Transfer of Empire. — By the fall of Babylon, the seat of 
empire in the East, which now for nearly two thousand years 
(from 2300 to 538 B.C.) had been in the Valley of the Tigris 
and Euphrates, moving up and down those rivers — finding an 
abode first at Ur, then at Nineveh, and lastly at Babylon — was 
transferred to Persepolis, the Persian capital, on the table- 
lands of Iran. Thus the sceptre of universal sovereignty, borne 

* " One post shall run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, 
to show the king of Babylon that his city is taken at one end."— Jer. li. 31. 
t Dan. v. 30. 



THE BABYLONIAN MONARCHY. 8 1 

first by the Hamitic race, then for so many centuries swayed 
by the Semitic, was now given to the Aryan, which race was 
destined from this time on to shape the course of events and 
control the affairs of civilization. 

The Great Edifices of Babylon. 
The deep impression which Babylon produced upon the 
early Greek travellers was effected chiefly by her vast architect- 
ural works — her temples, palaces, and elevated gardens. The 
famous Hanging Gardens of Nebuchadnezzar, and the Walls of 
the city, were reckoned among the Seven Wonders of the World. 

The Temple of the Seven Spheres. — The Babylonians, like 
their predecessors the Chaldaeans, accorded to the sacred edi- 
fices the place of pre-eminence among their architectural works. 
Upon the temples of the gods were lavished the wealth of the 
people and the skill of their artists. Sacred architecture in 
the time of Nebuchadnezzar had changed but little from the 
early Chaldaean models; only the temples were now larger, and 
more sumptuous in their embellishments, being made, in the 
language of the inscriptions, "to shine like the sun." 

The celebrated Temple of the Seven Spheres, which may 
serve as a representative of the later Babylonian temples, was 
located at Borsippa, a suburb of Babylon proper. This struct- 
ure was a vast pyramid, 270 feet square at the base, and rising 
in seven successive stages, or platforms, to a height of 156 feet. 
Each of the stages was dedicated to one of the seven planets, 
or spheres. (The sun and moon were reckoned as planets.) 
Various means were adopted to give the platforms the conven- 
tional tint assigned to the different planetary bodies. Thus 
the stages sacred to the sun and moon were covered respec- 
tively with plates of gold and silver.* 

The chapel, or shrine proper, surmounted the uppermost 

* '* Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society," vol. xviii. art i. p. 6. 
5 



82 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

stage, and, as described by Herodotus, must have been sumptu- 
ous in the extreme. The tower, thus crowned by the sanctu- 
ary and zoned with all the planetary colors, with the gilded 
stages glistening, as the inscriptions declare, " like the sun," 
presented a splendid and imposing appearance, that struck 
every beholder with astonishment and awe. 

An inscribed cylinder discovered under the corner of one 
of the stages (the Babylonians always buried records beneath 
the corners of their public edifices) informs us that this tem- 
ple was the restoration by Nebuchadnezzar of a very ancient 
one, which in his day had become, from " extreme old age," a 
heap of rubbish.* Some scholars have thought that the de- 
cayed edifice thus restored by Nebuchadnezzar was the unfin- 
ished Tower of Babel, of which great undertaking by the primi- 
tive people of Babylonia we have several confused traditions 
among the Chaldaean legends, besides an account handed 
down by the Hebrews. 

This edifice in its decay has left one of the grandest and 
most impressive -ruins in all the East. The great mass of the 
crumbled stages is now deeply furrowed with ravines worn by 
the rains of twenty centuries, and at a distance over the level 
desert appears like a mountain crowned with ruined walls. 

Palaces. — The Babylonian palaces were so like those of the 
Assyrians, already described, that any detailed account of them 

*"And by his [the god Marduk's] power," says the inscription, "I re- 
built the Temple of the Seven Spheres, which is the tower of Borsippa, 
which a former king had built, and had raised it to the height of forty-two 
cubits, but had not completed its crown or summit : from extreme old age 
it had crumbled down. The water-courses which once drained it had been 
entirely neglected. From their own weight the bricks had fallen down. . . . 
Then the great Lord Marduk moved my heart to complete this temple ; for 
its site or foundation had not been destroyed. ... Its summit and its up- 
per story I made like the old ones. I rebuilt entirely this upper portion, 
and I made its crown or summit as it had been planned in former days." 
— "Journal of the Asiatic Society," vol. xviii. art. ii. 



THE BABYLONIAN MONARCHY. &$ 

here is unnecessary. They were built upon platforms, or enor- 
mous substructions, similar to those we have seen at Nineveh. 
One of the largest of these, called by the natives El-Kasr, 
which supported the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar, covers an area 
of over one hundred acres. Its height varies from sixty to 
ninety feet. Numerous excavations have been made in this 
mound by the natives, in search of bricks. For two thousand 
years Babylon has been an inexhaustible brick quarry. Selu- 
cia of the Greeks, Al-Maydan of the Persians, and Cufa and 
Bagdad of the caliphs, were all built of material mined from 
these ruins. All the modern towns and caravansaries of the 
adjoining regions are constructed chiefly of brick dug out of 
the ruined edifices of the old capital. The Arab brick-mer- 
chants of the country, at the present day, engage as a regular 
business in the work of quarrying material from the old mounds 
and walls. 

The Hanging Gardens. — This structure excited the greatest 
admiration of the ancient Greek visitors to Babylon. It was 
constructed by Nebuchadnezzar, to please his wife Amytis, 
who, tired of the monotony of the Babylonian plains, longed 
for the mountain scenery of her native Media. The edifice 
was probably built somewhat in the form of the tower-temples, 
stages being erected one upon another, so as to form a vast 
pyramidal structure. The successive terraces, which overhung 
the city at a great height, were covered with earth, and beauti- 
fied with rare plants and trees, so as to simulate the appear- 
ance of a mountain rising in cultivated terraces towards the 
sky. The gardens were irrigated by means of curious hydrau- 
lic devices, which elevated and distributed over the terraces 
water drawn from the Euphrates.* 

* Recent excavations (1880-81) made by Hormuzd Rassam amid the 
ruins of Babylon have resulted in important and interesting discoveries. 
At what is called the Babel mound, one of the largest and most imposing 
upon the ancient site, the explorer has brought to light ruined hydraulic 



84 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

The Walls of Babylon. — The walls of Babylon proper are 
represented at the present time by enormous ramparts about 
eight miles in circuit, in every respect similar to those at Nin- 
eveh. Within these defences lie most of the heaps and mounds 
that mark the position of the various Babylonian edifices. 

Under the later kings, it appears that walls of vast strength 
and circuit were constructed. Herodotus says that these walls 
enclosed an area just fourteen miles square. An inscription 
of Nebuchadnezzar, recently discovered, exactly confirms the 
statements of the historian. The space they enclosed must 
not be regarded as a city, but rather as a fortified district. 
The walls embraced several cities, including Babylon proper 
and Borsippa. We may compare these ramparts to the long 
walls of Themistocles, by means of which Athens was united 

works of great extent, reservoirs, and stone-lined aqueducts evidently de- 
signed for bringing water from the Euphrates. These discoveries seem to 
point out the great Babel mound as the remains of the celebrated Gardens 
of Nebuchadnezzar. "The supposition receives additional support from 
the recovery of a small inscribed tablet, which clearly proves the fondness 
of the Babylonian kings for horticulture. A scribe attached to one of the 
palace or temple libraries of Babylonia has transmitted to us a list of the gar- 
dens or paradises of the Babylonian monarch Merodach-Baladan, the con- 
temporary of Sargon, Sennacherib, and Hezekiah. This monarch appears 
to have been a lavish patron of horticulture, for the list furnishes the names 
of more than sixty gardens and parks in and about Babylon constructed by 
the royal order." . . . The explorer has also added many valuable tablets to 
those collected by George Smith, of the British Museum. The matter held 
by some of these documents is of intense interest. "They show that for a 
long period, probably several centuries, the family of the Beni Egibi were 
the leading commercial firm of Babylon, and to them was confided all the 
business of the Babylonian ministry of finance. The building whose ruins 
are marked by the mound of Jumjuma was the chancellerie of the firm, and 
from its ruins come the records of every class of monetary transaction. . . . 
From the tax receipts we learn how the revenue was raised by duties levied 
on land, on crops of dates, and even on cattle, by imposts for the use of the 
irrigation canals, and for the use of the public roads." In view of what has 
been already secured, we may reasonably hope for a rich harvest from the 
more thorough working of the Babylonian mounds. 



THE BABYLONIAN MONARCHY. 85 

with her seaports. The object in enclosing such an enormous 
district seems to have been to bring sufficient cultivatable 
ground within the defences to support the inhabitants in case 
of a protracted siege. No certain traces of these outer ram- 
parts can now be found.* 

* Herodotus says the walls were eighty-five feet thick and three hundred 
and twenty-five feet high. Strabo gives thirty-two feet for the thickness, 
and seventy-three feet for the height. There was an inner wall, very infe- 
rior to the great outer wall, and enclosing only about one half of the area 
embraced by the latter. (Neither of these must be confused with the wall 
that surrounded the royal city, or Babylon proper.) " Both the violence of 
man and the action of the elements combined to break these ramparts down. 
Cyrus dismantled them; and when the city was retaken by Darius, after its 
revolt from the Persian authority, that conqueror reduced the height, in or- 
der that the city might not possess such powers of resistance a second time 
to his army ; and thus again Xerxes, Demetrius Poliorcetes, and Alexander 
are all said to have successively dismantled and broken down the reduced 
ramparts. If these conquerors did not throw them down entirely, the ele- 
ments could easily have completed the work ; for the walls were only earth- 
en ramparts, and would readily drop back into the deep moat from which 
the material had been taken." — " Remains of Lost Empires," p. 248. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF CHALDEAN, ASSYRIAN, AND 

BABYLONIAN DYNASTIES AND KINGS. 

(Based on the Authority of Rawlinson.) 



Dynasties or Periods. 



Kings. 



r\ 1 i™~„ n „„q£ f Nimrod, founder of the empire, 
Chaldacan (?-2 2 86 J Umkh ; ^ 

B.C.) . 



B.C. 

about 2300 



Hi 



Elamite ( 2286 
2052 B.C.) 

Unknown 

Chaldaean (2004 
1546 B.C.) 



Arab (1546 
B.C.) 



Early Empire (?• 
1300 B.C.) 



Kudur-Nakhunta (Zoroaster) conquers 

Chaldaea 

Kudur- Lagamer (Chedorlaomer), con- 
temporary with Abraham about 2000 

(2052-2004 B.C.) 

' Ismi-dagon about 1850-1830 

Nur-Vul " 

Rim-Sin " 

{Khammu-rabi " 
Succession of obscure names. 
Chaldaea conquered by Tiglathi-Nin. . . 1300 

First names obscure and dates uncertain. 

Bel-lush about 1380-1360 



-1301 



2286 



1 586-1 566 
1 566-1 546 
1 546-1 520 



(130O-745 B.C.). 



Later Empire 
(745-625 B.C.). 



First Period 
(1300-625 B.C.). 



Second Period 
(625-538 B.C.). 



Pud-il 

Vul-lush I 

Shalmaneser I 

Tiglathi-Nin, conqueror of Chaldaea. 
* * * * * 



1 3 60- 1 340 
1340-1320 
1 3 20- 1 300 
1 300- 1 280 



1130-1110 



* 

Tiglath-pileser I about 

Vul-lush II 911-889 

Tiglathi-Nin II 8S9-883 

t Empirel Asshur-izer-pal 883-858 

Shalmaneser II 858-823 

Shamas-Vul II 823-810 

Vul-lush III 810-781 

Shalmaneser III 781-771 

Asshur-dayan III 771—753 

_ Asshur-lush 7153—745 

Tiglath-pileser II 745-727 

Shalmaneser IV 727-722 

Sargon 722-705 

Sennacherib 705-681 

Esarhaddon 681-668 

Asshur-bani-pal 668-625 

Asshur-emid-ilin (Saracus) 625 

Babylon ruled, for the most part, by 

Assyrian viceroys 1300-747 

Re-establishes her independence under 

Nabonassar 

Merodach-Baladan 

Assyrian Sargon reconquers Babylon . . 
Successive revolts and their suppression. 
Assyrian Empire destroyed and Baby- 
lon becomes independent 

' Nabopolassar 625-604 

Nebuchadnezzar 604-561 

Evil-Merodach 561-559 

Neriglissar 5159-556 

Labossoracus 556—555 

Nabonadius 555 — 53^ 

Belshazzar (shares the government with his father). 



747 
721-709 

709 
709-626 

625 



THE HEBREW NATION. 87 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE HEBREW NATION. 

Importance of Hebrew History. — The history of no other 
people in so eminent a degree as that of the Hebrew nation 
illustrates the fact — a fact which we must in our study keep 
steadily in view — that the germ of all that is best in our mod- 
ern civilization is to be sought among the institutions of an- 
tiquity. The nations already passed in review enriched the 
world by their labors and discoveries in art, science, and phi- 
losophy. The Hebrews did nothing in these matters. Their 
mission was a grander one — to teach righteousness. Of all 
the elements of the rich legacy bequeathed to the modern by 
the ancient world, by far the most important, in their influence 
upon the course of events, were those transmitted to us by the 
ancient Hebrews. 

The Patriarchal Age. — Hebrew story begins with the de- 
parture of Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees, about 2000 B.C. 
This patriarch was one of the most remarkable personages of 
the ancient world. Although living in the midst of a people 
engrossed in a polytheistic nature -worship, he professed a 
simple belief in one God. Stirred by the idolatry about him, 
inspired with a grand faith in God, and firm in the conviction 
that his was destined to be the idea and worship of the future, 
Abraham left the land of his fathers, and led his little band of 
dissenters across the Mesopotamian plains, over the Euphra- 
tes, and up into the hill country now known as Palestine, 
which overlooks the Mediterranean. 

The story of Abraham and his nephew Lot, of Isaac and his 



88 ANCIENT HISTORY/ 

sons Jacob and Esau, and of the twelve sons of the patriarch 
Jacob, is told in the Hebrew Scriptures with a charm and sim- 
plicity that have made all these names the familiar possessions 
of childhood. 

During all the Patriarchal Age, the descendants of Abraham 
felt themselves to be strangers and sojourners in a country not 
their own. Their life was the simple wandering one of the 
Bedawin of to-day, who each summer come up from the Mes- 
opotamian region, and dot the valleys and plains of this same 
land with their black tents and flocks. In the times of the He- 
brew patriarchs, this region seems to have been but sparsely 
settled, and these wanderers from beyond the Euphrates were 
permitted to rove over the country about at will. Thus mov- 
ing from place to place in search of pasturage for their flocks, 
they pitched their tents on almost every spot in Palestine. 

The Hebrews in Egypt (from 18th to 14th century b.c. ?). An 
event of frequent occurrence in the East now gave an entirely 
new turn to Hebrew history. A long drought, and consequent 
failure of crops and pasturage in Palestine, forced the families 
of Israel to look to the more favored Valley of the Nile for sus- 
tenance for themselves and their flocks. The way for their 
kind reception by the King of Egypt had been providentially 
prepared. Joseph, having been sold by his jealous broth- 
ers into slavery, had won, through the generosity of events 
and his personal ability, the favor of the Egyptian monarch, 
and had been advanced to the position of prime -minister 
of the empire. Through his regard for his trusted minister, 
Pharaoh admitted the Hebrews to an audience, and assigned 
them lands for their families and flocks in the land of Goshen, 
a most fertile section of the Delta country, and one well adapt- 
ed to their pastoral habits. Here the Hebrews increased rap- 
idly in numbers, and soon became an important element in 
the Egyptian state. 

A change in the ruling dynasty led to an entire reversal of" 



THE HEBREW NATION. 89 

the policy of the Egyptian sovereigns in their treatment of the 
Hebrews, as well as of other Semitic peoples whom migratory 
movements had brought into the Delta from the neighboring 
regions of Asia. Fearing their increasing numbers, lest in 
case of invasion or revolt they should join the enemies of the 
Egyptians — an apprehension not by any means groundless, for 
the country had but just been delivered from those Asiatic in- 
truders called the Shepherd Kings — a severe persecution was 
waged against them. They were treated like prisoners of war, 
and by unfeeling taskmasters forced to hard labor upon the 
various edifices of the Pharaohs. All their male children 
were destroyed. The persecution gradually assumed a relig- 
ious character, and became more bitter ; for the pure mono- 
theism of the Hebrews and the debased animal-worship of the 
Egyptians were in direct antagonism. A long and severe con- 
test arose between Moses and Aaron, the leaders of the He- 
brews, and the priests and magicians of the Egyptians. 

Moses had been providentially prepared for the part he was 
to act in this great struggle, and for leadership among the 
tribes of Israel in this crisis of their affairs. Forty years of 
his life had been spent in Egypt as a member of the court of 
the reigning Pharaoh, and also as a pupil in the celebrated col- 
leges of the priests, where he became "learned in all the wis- 
dom of the Egyptians." At length, obliged to flee from the 
country because of sympathy with his oppressed kinsmen the 
Hebrews — which he had manifested in an act of violence — he 
sought a refuge in the land of Midian, and here, as a shep- 
herd, passed forty other years in solitude and in thought amidst 
the dreary scenes of the Arabian Desert. Impelled at last by 
a divine call that came to him amidst these occupations and 
scenes, he returned to the Valley of the Nile, and announced 
himself to his brethren as their appointed deliverer from their 
hated bondage. 

The contest which we have seen begun between the chil- 
dren of Israel and the Egyptian rulers was now brought to an 

5* 



90 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

abrupt termination. A series of plagues and calamities, fall- 
ing with terrible swiftness and fatal effect upon the country 
and its people, led Pharaoh to yield to the demands of the 
Hebrews — to which were now joined the entreaties of his own 
afflicted people — and to suffer them to depart out of the coun- 
try. Hastily mustering the different tribes, Moses led the vast 
multitude — there were 600,000 fighting-men — towards the east- 
ern frontier of Egypt. 

The Exodus (14th century B.C. ?). — Although Pharaoh, while 
under the fear produced by the wonderful and calamitous 
events of the preceding months, had consented to the depart- 
ure of the Israelites, still no sooner did he see himself about 
to be deprived of this vast number of subjects and slaves 
than he repented of having granted the permission, and de- 
termined to detain them by force. 

Gathering a large army of foot and chariot, he set out in hot 
pursuit of the fugitives, and overtook them just as they reached 
the shores of the Red Sea, near its head. Hemmed in as they 
were by the sea and the desert, certain destruction seemed to 
await the fleeing multitude. But with the night came on a 
strong east wind, which drove back the waters of the gulf, so as 
to lay bare the bottom of the channel, and to permit the passage 
of the fugitives, under cover of the darkness. In the first dawn 
of the morning, Pharaoh and his host, pushing on in mad pur- 
suit, were caught by the returning tides, which, by a sudden 
change in the wind, came back in their strength ; and the 
army, thrown into confusion and embarrassed by the disabled 
chariots, was overwhelmed in the treacherous quicksands. 

From this eventful night dates the birth of the Hebrew 
nation. The great deliverance touched the hearts of all with 
a common and intense enthusiasm. It colored the whole sub- 
sequent history of Israel, and is the key to very much that 
would otherwise be inexplicable in the story of this peculiar 
people. The convictions that were born out of the wonderful 



THE HEBREW NATION. 9 1 

event were the source, and are the explanation, of much of the 
resolution and religious zeal exhibited in succeeding passages 
of the nation's history. 

The forty years following this event were consumed in weary 
wanderings up and down the Sinailic peninsula. During this 
time the generation that came out of Egypt, and to whom clung 
all the instincts of their life of slavery, were replaced by a 
new generation inured to the hardships of the desert, and by 
this discipline prepared for the conquest of the land of Pales- 
tine, for which work their fathers had shown themselves un- 
fitted by shamefully recoiling from the attempt when Moses 
wished to lead them against the strongholds of the tribes that 
held the southern frontier of Philistia. Amidst the "terrific 
scenery " of the southern portion of the peninsula, they were 
given, from Mount Sinai, the law which formed the basis of 
all their national institutions. 

At last, with the long-intermitted march resumed, Moses led 
the tribes by a great detour to the eastern frontier of Palestine, 
thus avoiding the strongly garrisoned forts and cities of the 
south, and bringing the armies of Israel upon the compara- 
tively unprotected flank of the country. From the mountains 
of Moab, which overhang the Valley of the Jordan, the great 
leader and prophet of Israel was privileged, from some com- 
manding height, to cast his eyes over the land promised unto 
his fathers. Here, in sight of the longed-for country, he died 
amidst the mountains of Moab; but "no man knoweth of his 
sepulchre unto this day." 

Conquest of Canaan and Apportionment of the Land. — 
Joshua, the successor of Moses, led the people across the Jor- 
dan ; and after the capture of Jericho, a walled city situated in 
the river plain just above the head of the Dead Sea. proceeded 
to the work of subjugating the different tribes of the hill coun- 
try of Palestine. Two campaigns, one conducted towards the 
south and the other to the north, placed the larger part of the 
land in the possession of the Hebrews. 



92 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

The conquered territory was now apportioned among the 
different tribes, the two tribes of Gad and Reuben and half the 
tribe of Manasseh being permitted to settle upon land to the 
east of the Jordan, the inviting nature of which had struck 
them while marching through that region. 

Thus, after one of the most remarkable migratory move- 
ments of which any annals have been preserved, were the 
tribes of Israel brought again, as its permanent settlers, to the 
land over which, five hundred years before, their ancestors had 
roved, with their flocks and tents, as strangers and as pilgrims. 

The Judges (from 1300 b.c. ? to 1095 B.C.). — A long period 
of anarchy and dissensions followed the conquest and allot- 
ment of the land. " There was no king in Israel : every man 
did that which was right in his own eyes." During this time 
there arose a long line of national heroes, such as Ehud, Sham- 
gar, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson, whose deeds of valor and 
daring, and the timely deliverance they wrought for the tribes 
of Israel from their foes, caused their names to be handed 
down with grateful remembrance to following ages. 

These popular leaders were called judges because they usu- 
ally exercised judicial functions, acting as arbiters between 
the different tribes, as well as between man and man. Othniel, 
a relative of Caleb, the friend and companion of Joshua, was 
the first Judge of Israel. He was followed by Ehud, who by 
stratagem slew Eglon, King of Moab. " And after him was 
Shamgar the son of Anath, which slew of the Philistines six 
hundred men with an ox-goad: and he also delivered Israel." 
We are told that at this time among forty thousand Israelites 
there was not to be found a single spear or shield. 

Deborah was a poet and prophet as well as judge. This 
wonderful person brings to our mind Joan of Arc in French 
history ; and the parallel will aid us in comprehending the char- 
acter and mission of the Hebrew heroine. Her influence seems 
to have been almost unbounded. She inspired Barak, of the 



THE HEBREW NATION. 93 

tribe of Naphtali, to attempt the deliverance of Israel out of the 
hands of Jabin, a powerful Canaanitish ruler, who could bring 
into the field nine hundred chariots of iron, and who for twenty 
years had "mightily oppressed the children of Israel." The 
overthrow and death of Sisera, the captain of Jabin's army, are 
celebrated by Deborah in a wild and exultant song that ranks 
among the most remarkable of the martial poems produced by 
the rude and barbarous age of any people. # 

Towards the close of the dark, confused, and transitional pe- 
riod of the Judges is placed Samson, the most renowned, in 
some respects, of the heroes of Israel. With his adventurous 
exploits and feats of strength every one is familiar. They are 
narrated in the Book of Judges, which is a collection of the 
fragmentary, yet always interesting, traditions of this early and 
heroic period of the nation's life. The last of the Judges was 
Samuel, whose life embraces the close of the anarchical age 
and the beginning of the monarchy. 

Founding of the Hebrew Monarchy (1095 b.c). — During the 
period of the Judges, the tribes of Israel were united by no 
central government. Their union was nothing more than a 
league, or confederation, which has been compared to the 
Saxon Heptarchy in England. But the common dangers to 
which they were exposed from the attacks of the half-subdued 
Canaanitish tribes about them, and the example of the great 
kingdoms of Egypt and Assyria, led the people to begin to 
think of the advantages of a closer union and a stronger gov- 
ernment. Consequently the republic, or confederation, was 
changed into a kingdom, and Saul, of the tribe of Benjamin, a 
man chosen chiefly because of his commanding stature and 
royal aspect, was made king of the new monarchy (1095 B.C.). 

The king was successful in subduing the enemies of the 
Hebrews, and consolidated the tribes and settled the affairs 
of the new state. But towards the close of his reign, his reason 
* See Judges v. 



94 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

became disturbed: fits of gloom and despondency passed into 
actual insanity, which clouded the closing years of his life. At 
last he and his three sons fell in battle with the Philistines 
upon Mount Gilboa (1055 b.c). 

The Reign of David (1055-1015 b.c). — Upon the death of 
Saul, David, son of Jesse, of the tribe of Judah, who had been 
previously anointed and encouraged to expect the crown by the 
high-priest Samuel, assumed the sceptre. After crushing the at- 
tempt made by the surviving son of Saul (Ishbosheth) to secure 
the throne of his father, and reducing to allegiance all the tribes, 
David set about enlarging and strengthening his dominions. 

There were yet many Canaanitish strongholds in the land, 
the defenders of which the Israelites had been unable to dis- 
lodge. In the midst of the district allotted to the tribe of 
Judah was the strong fortress of Jebus, possessed by the Jebu- 
sites. David succeeded in capturing this place by stratagem, 
and, under the name of Jerusalem, made it his capital city. 
This warlike king transformed the pastoral and half-civilized 
tribes into a conquering people, and, in imitation of the mon- 
archs of the Nile and the Euphrates, extended the limits of his 
empire in every direction, and waged wars of extermination 
against the troublesome tribes of Moab and Edom. 

Poet as well as warrior, David enriched the literature of his 
own nation and of the world with lyric songs that breathe such 
a spirit of devotion and trust .that they have been ever since 
his day the source of comfort and inspiration to thousands. 
He had in mind to build at Jerusalem a magnificent temple, 
and spent the latter years of his life in collecting material for 
this purpose. In dying he left the crown to Solomon, his 
youngest son, his eldest, Absalom, having been slain in a re- 
volt against his father, and the second, Adonijah, having been 
excluded from the succession for a similar crime. 

The Reign of Solomon (1015-975 b.c.).— Solomon did not 



THE HEBREW NATION. 95 

possess his father's talent for military affairs, but was a liberal 
patron of architecture, commerce, and learning. He erected, 
with the utmost magnificence of adornment, the temple at Jeru- 
salem, planned by his father David. King Hiram of Tyre, who 
was a close friend of the Hebrew monarch, aided him in this 
undertaking by supplying him with the celebrated cedar of 
Lebanon, and with Tynan architects, the most skilled workmen 
at that time in the world. The dedication ceremonies upon 
the completion of the building were most imposing and im- 
pressive. Thenceforth this temple was the centre of the Jew- 
ish worship and of the national life. 

For the purpose of extending his commerce, Solomon built 
fleets upon the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. The most 
remote regions of Asia and Africa were visited by his ships, 
and their rich and wonderful products made to contribute to 
the wealth and glory of his kingdom. To facilitate the over- 
land trade with the Valley of the Euphrates and the regions be- 
yond, he built Tadmor (Palmyra), a sort of caravansary in the 
midst of the Syrian Desert. As a great depot of the trade of 
the East, this desert city soon attained importance, and in 
later times, under Zenobia, became the rival of Rome. 

Solomon maintained one of the most magnificent courts ever 
held by Oriental sovereign. When the Queen of Sheba, attract- 
ed by the reports of his glory, came from Southern Arabia to 
visit the monarch, she exclaimed, "The half was not told me." 
He was the wisest king of the East. His proverbs are famous 
specimens of sententious wisdom. He wrote the Song of 
Songs, and perhaps the Book of Ecclesiastes — the latter when 
the pomp and pleasures of life were palling upon him. He 
was versed in botany, being acquainted with plants and trees, 
"from the hyssop upon the wall to the cedar of Lebanon." 

But, wise as was Solomon in his words, his life was far from 
being either admirable or prudent. In conformity to Asiatic 
custom, he had many wives — seven hundred, we are told — of 
different nationalities and religions. Through their persuasion 



9 6 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 



the old monarch himself fell into idolatry, which turned from 
him the affections of his best subjects, and prepared th?. way 
for the dissensions and wars that followed his death. 

The Division of the Kingdom (975 b.c). — The reign of Solo- 
mon was brilliant, yet disastrous in the end to the Hebrew mon- 
archy. In order to carry on his vast undertakings, he had laid 
most oppressive taxes upon his people. When Rehoboam, his 
son, succeeded to his father's place, the people entreated him 
to lighten the taxes that were making their very lives a burden. 
Influenced by young and unwise counsellors, he replied to the 
petition with haste and insolence : " My father," said he, 
" chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scor- 
pions." Immediately all the tribes, save Judah and Benjamin, 
rose in revolt, and succeeded in setting up, to the north of 
Jerusalem, a rival kingdom, with Jeroboam as its first king. 
This northern state, with Samaria as its capital, became known 
as the Kingdom of Israel ; the southern, of which Jerusalem 
remained the capital, was called the Kingdom of Judah. 

Thus was torn in twain the empire of David and Solomon. 
United, the tribes might have maintained an empire capable of 
offering successful resistance to the encroachments of the power- 
ful and ambitious monarchs about them. Rut now the land 
becomes an easy prey to the spoiler. It is henceforth the path- 
way of the conquering armies of the Nile and the Euphrates. 
Between the powerful monarchies of these regions, as between 
an upper and nether millstone, the little kingdoms are destined, 
one after the other, to be ground to pieces. 

The Kingdom of Israel (975-721 b.c). — The kingdom of the 
Ten Tribes maintained an existence for about two hundred and 
fifty years. Its story is instructive and sad. Many passages of 
its history are recitals of the struggles between the pure worship 
of Jehovah and the idolatrous services of the deities introduced 
from the surrounding nations. During the reign of Ahab and 



THE HEBREW NATION. 97 

his infamous queen Jezebel, the quarrel between the two re- 
ligious parties issued in bitter persecutions and massacres. 
The cause of the religion of Jehovah, as the tribes of Israel 
had received it from the patriarch Abraham and the lawgiver 
Moses, was boldly espoused and upheld by a line of the most 
remarkable teachers and prophets produced by the Hebrew 
race, among whom Elijah and Elisha stand pre-eminent. With 
undaunted courage and unswerving loyalty to the divine mo- 
nitions, they condemned the idolatry and corruption of the 
times, and labored to lead the people back to the earlier and 
purer faith of their fathers. 

But all was in vain \ and at last the thoroughly corrupt and 
enfeebled nation falls into the power of the Assyrian monarch. 
This happened 721 B.C., when Samaria, as we have already nar- 
rated in the history of Assyria, was captured by Sargon, King of 
Nineveh, and the Ten Tribes were carried away into captivity 
beyond the Euphrates. From this time they are quite lost to 
history. 

The country, left nearly vacant by this wholesale deportation 
of its inhabitants, was filled with other subjects or captives of 
the Assyrian king. The descendants of these, mingled with 
the few Jews of the poorer class that were still left in the 
country, formed the Samaritans of the time of Christ. 

The Kingdom of Judah (975-588 b.c). — This little kingdom, 
torn by internal religious dissensions, as was its rival kingdom 
of the north, and often on the very verge of ruin from Egyptian 
or Assyrian armies, maintained an independent existence for 
about four centuries. During this period, a line of eighteen 
kings, of most diverse characters, sat upon the throne. Upon 
the extension of the power of Babylon to the west, Jerusalem 
was forced to acknowledge the suzerainty of the Babylonian 
kings. 

The kingdom at last shared the fate of its northern rival. 
Nebuchadnezzar, the powerful king of Babylon, in revenge for 



98 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

an uprising of the Jews, besieged and captured Jerusalem, and 
carried away the people and their king, Zedekiah, into captivity 
at Babylon. This event occurred one hundred and thirty-three 
years after the leading of the Ten Tribes into captivity by the 
Assyrians. It virtually ended the separate and political life of 
the Hebrew race (588 B.C.). Henceforth Judah constitutes 
simply a province of the empires— Babylonian, Persian, Mace- 
donian, and Roman — which successively held sway over the 
regions of Western Asia, with, however, just one nicker of 
national life under the Maccabees, during a part of the two 
centuries just preceding the birth of Christ. 

It only remains to mention those succeeding events which be- 
long rather to the story of the Jews as a people than as a nation. 
Upon the capture of Babylon by the Persian king Cyrus, that 
monarch, kindly disposed towards the Jews that he there found 
captives, permitted them to return to Jerusalem and restore the 
Temple. Jerusalem thus became again the centre of the old 
Hebrew worship, and, although shorn of national glory, con- 
tinued to be the sacred centre of the ancient faith till the second 
generation after Christ. Then, in chastisement for repeated re- 
volts, the city was laid in ruins by the Romans ; while vast num- 
bers of the inhabitants— some authorities say over one million — 
were slain, or perished by famine, and the remnant were driven 
into exile in different lands. 

Thus by a series of unparalleled calamities and persecutions 
were the descendants of Abraham " sifted among all nations f 
but to this day they cling with a strange devotion and loyalty 
to the simple faith of their fathers. 

Hebrew Religio?i and Litei-ahire. 
The ancient Hebrews made little or no contribution to 
science. They produced no new order of architecture. In 
sculpture they did nothing : their religion forbade their making 
" graven images." Their mission, as we have already said, was 
to teach religion. Here they have been the instructors of the 



THE HEBREW NATION. 



99 



world. Their literature is a religious one; for literature with 
them was simply a medium for the conveyance of religious in- 
struction and the awakening of devotional feeling. 

The Hebrew religion, a pure monotheism, the teachings of a 
long line of holy men — patriarchs, lawgivers, prophets, and 
priests — stretching from Abraham down to the fifth century 
B.C., is contained in the sacred books of the Old Testament 
Scriptures. In these ancient writings, patriarchal traditions, his- 
tories, dramas, poems, prophecies, and personal narrative blend 
in a wonderful mosaic, which pictures with vivid and grand 
effect the various migrations, the deliverances, the calamities — 
all the events and religious experiences in the checkered life 
of the Chosen People. 

Out of this old exclusive, formal Hebrew religion, transformed 
and spiritualized by the Great Teacher who spake as never man 
spake, grew the Christian faith. Out of the Old Testament 
arose the New, which we should think of as a part of Hebrew 
literature ; for although written in the Greek language, and 
long after the close of the political life of the Jewish nation, 
still it is essentially Hebrew in thought and doctrine, and the 
supplement and crown of the Hebrew Scriptures. 

Besides the Sacred Scriptures, called collectively, by way of 
pre-eminence, The Bible (The Book), it only remains to mention 
the Apocrypha, embracing a number of books written original- 
ly in Greek, and regarded by both Jews and Christians as un- 
canonical ; the Talmud, a collection of Hebrew customs and 
traditions, with the comments thereupon of the rabbis, a 
work held by most Jews next in sacredness to the Holy Book ; 
the writings of Philo, a famous rabbi who lived at Alexandria 
just before the birth of Christ ; and the "Antiquities of the 
Jews " and the " Jewish Wars " by the historian Josephus, who 
lived and wrote about the time of the taking of Jerusalem by 
Titus — that is, during the latter part of the first century after 
Christ. 



100 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 





JUDGES OF ISRAEL. 




Othniel, 


Abimelech, 


Elon, 


Ehud, 


Tola, 


Abdon, 


Shamgar, 


Jair, 


Eli, 


Deborah, 


Jephthah, 


Samson, 


Gideon, 


Ibzan, 


Samuel. 



The chronology of the period of the Judges is very uncertain. The era 
covers something like three centuries, embraced between the death of 
Joshua and the establishment of the Monarchy, 1095 B.C. Moses and 
Aaron are not usually reckoned among the Judges, although they both 
exercised judicial functions. 



KINGS OF THE UNITED MONARCHY. 

B.C. 

Saul i°95-io55 

David 1055-1015 

Solomon 1015-975 



DIVISION OF MONARCHY, 975 B.C. 



KINGS OF ISRAEL. B.C. 

Jeroboam 975-954 

Nadab 954"953 

Baasha 953-93° 

Elah 930-9 2 9 

Zimri 9 2 9 

Omri 929-918 

Ahab 918-897 

Ahaziah 897-896 

Jehoram 896-884 

Jehu 884-856 

Jehoahaz 856-839 

Joash 839-823 

Jeroboam II 823-772 

Zachariah 772 

Shallum 772 

Menahem 772-762 

Pekahiah 762-760 

Pekah 7 6 °-73° 

Hoshea 730-721 

Sargon captures Samaria. 721 



KINGS OF JUDAH. b.c. 

Rehoboam 975~958 

Abijam 958-956 

Asa 956-916 

Jehoshaphat 916-892 

Jehoram 892-885 

Ahaziah 885-884 

Athaliah 884-878 

Joash 878-838 

Amaziah 838-809 

Azariah 809-757 

Jotham 757-742 

Ahaz 742-726 

Hezekiah 726-697 

Manasseh 697-642 

Amon 642-640 

Josiah 640-609 

Jehoahaz 609 

Jehoiakim 609-598 

Jehoiachin 59§-597 

Zedekiah 597"588 



THE PHOENICIANS. 10 1 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE PHOENICIANS. 

Origin of the Phoenicians.— Ancient Phoenicia embraced a 
little strip of broken sea-coast lying between the Mediterranean 
and the ranges of Mount Lebanon. The first settlers of this 
maritime region were probably kinsmen of the Canaanitish 
tribes.* In very remote times — that is, about 2300 B.C. — the 
ancestors of all these peoples dwelt in the regions bordering 
upon the Persian Gulf. Uprooted from those original seats by 
invading tribes, they traversed the Mesopotamian plains, and 
came into Palestine some time before the arrival of Abraham 
from the same region ; for we are told that. when the patriarch 
led his flocks into Palestine " the Canaanite was then in pos- 
session of the land." 

Although the larger part of the migratory bands appear to 
have settled in the country which afterwards became known as 
the Promised Land, still some of the tribes pressed on to the 
sea -coast, and took possession of the region called by the 
Greeks Phoenicia. Still other clans of the same race pushed 
southward into the Delta- of the Nile, establishing there the 
dynasty of the Shepherd Kings, of whom we have given an 
account in connection with the history of the Egyptians. 

While the Hyksos, from their fortified camp of Avaris, were 
extending their authority over the old civilization of the Nile, 
the kindred tribes that had settled on the tract of sea-coast over- 
looked by Mount Lebanon were establishing fishing-stations, 
and laying the foundation of the first and foremost maritime 
power of the early world. 

* See pp. 4-6, paragraphs on "The Hamitic People " and "The Semitic 
Nations." 



102 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Products of the Country. — One of the celebrated productions 
of Phoenicia was the fine fir timber cut from the forests that 
crowned the lofty ranges of the Lebanon Mountains. The 
"cedar of Lebanon " holds a prominent place both in the his- 
tory and the poetry of the East. Another famous product of 
the country was the Tyrian purple, which was obtained from 
several varieties of the murex, a species of shell-fish yielded by 
the fisheries of the coast. There were different shades of 
the dye : that extracted from the variety of the murex inhabit- 
ing the seas about the rock of Tyre was the most brilliant, and, 
being reserved almost exclusively for the vestments of royalty, 
was called the " royal purple." 

Tyre and Sidon. — The various Phoenician cities never coa- 
lesced to form a true nation. They constituted simply a sort 
of league, or confederacy, the petty states of which generally 
acknowledged the suzerainty of Tyre or Sidon, the two chief 
cities. The latter at first held the place of supremacy in the 
confederation, until that city was overthrown by the Philistines, 
1050 B.C. Upon that event Tyre, a little to the south of Sidon, 
built partly upon the mainland and partly upon a "rock in the 
midst of the waves," assumed the position of leadership among 
the Phoenician communities. 

For more than seven centuries Tyre controlled the affairs of 
Phoenicia ; and during this time the maritime enterprise and 
energy of her merchants spread the fame of the little island 
capital throughout the world. She was queen and mistress of 
the Mediterranean. The kings of Tyre had but little of the 
ambition for territorial aggrandizement that characterized the 
monarchs of their times. So long as they controlled the com- 
merce of the seas they were content. When Solomon offered 
King Hiram, for aid rendered in building the temple, twenty 
cities and towns, the Tyrian monarch chose instead oil, wheat, 
and other products of Palestine. 

During all the last centuries of her existence, Phoenicia was, 



THE PHOENICIANS. I03 

for the most part, tributary to one or another of the great mon- 
archies about her. She acknowledged in turn the suzerainty 
of the Assyrian, the Egyptian, the Babylonian, the Persian, and 
the Macedonian kings. Alexander, after a most memorable 
sieo-e, captured the city of Tyre — which alone of all the Phoeni- 
cian cities closed her gates against the conqueror— and reduced 
it to ruins (332 B.C.). She never recovered from this blow. The 
site of the once brilliant maritime capital is now "bare as the 
top of a rock," a place where the few fishers that still frequent 
the spot spread their nets to dry. 

Phoenician Commerce.— When we catch our first glimpse of 
the Mediterranean, about 1800 B.C., it is dotted with the sails 
of Phoenician navigators. It was natural that the people of 
the Phoenician coast should have been led to a seafaring life. 
The lofty mountains that back the little strip of shore seemed 
to shut them in from a career of conquest and to prohibit an 
extension of their land domains. At the same time, the Medi- 
terranean in front invited them to maritime enterprise ; while 
the forests of Lebanon in the rear offered timber in abundance 
for their ships. The Phoenicians, indeed, were the first navi- 
gators who pushed out boldly from the shores and made real 
sea voyages. They crossed the Mediterranean in every direc- 
tion with their ships, distributing the manufactures of Asia 
among the different peoples of Southern Europe, that were 
now just rising above the lowest stages of culture, and from 
those regions brought back articles in quest among the mer- 
chants of the East. 

The longest voyages were made to procure tin, which was in 
great demand for the manufacture of articles in bronze. The 
nearest region where this metal occurred was the Caucasus, on 
the eastern shore of the Euxine. The Phoenician sailors boldly 
threaded the ^Egean Archipelago, passed through the Helles- 
pont, braved the unknown terrors of the Black Sea, and from 
the land of Colchis brought back to the manufacturers of Asia 



104 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

the coveted article — more precious than the Golden Fleece of 
the Argonauts. 

Towards the close of the fifteenth century B.C., the jealousy 
of the Pelasgic states of Greece and the Archipelago, that were 
now growing into maritime power, closed the yEgean Sea 
against the Phoenician navigators. They then pushed out into 
the Western Mediterranean, and opened the tin -mines of the 
Iberian (Spanish) peninsula. When these began to fail, these 
bold sailors passed the Pillars of Hercules, faced the dangers 
of the Atlantic, and brought back from those distant seas the 
tin gathered in the mines of Britain. 

PhcBnician Colonies. — Along the different routes pursued by 
their ships, and upon the coasts visited by them, the Phoenicians 
established factories, naval stations, and trading-posts. Thus 
the islands and shores of the Mediterranean became studded 
with naval depots and establishments that in time grew into 
important centres of trade and civilization. 

The stations first established by the Phoenicians were simply 
factories and stopping-places for their ships. They were not 
colonies in the sense that they were the new seats of a surplus 
population. But an important event in Palestine now gave 
them an entirely different character. About the close of the 
14th century B.C., the children of Israel crossed the frontier 
of that country, and almost at a blow destroyed thirty -five of 
the Canaanitish states. The inhabitants were either slaugh- 
tered or pushed back towards the sea-coast, where they crowded 
into the cities of the Phoenicians. This influx of refugees from 
the hill country gave an impulse to the true colonizing spirit. 
The exiles were settled in different cities planted in Europe 
and Africa. To this era is referred the founding of Thebes in 
Greece, which event plays such an important part in the tradi- 
tions of the Greeks. Large numbers of the refugees were set- 
tled in Northern Africa, where already existed communities of 
their kinsmen who had pushed on from Egypt at the time of 



THE PHCENICIANS. I05 

the Shepherd Kings. Utica, Hippo, and Carthage were the most 
celebrated of the cities that sprang up along the African coast. 
Colonies were even planted beyond the Pillars of Hercules, 
upon the Atlantic seaboard. The Phoenician settlement of 
Gades, upon the western coast of Spain, is still preserved in 
the modern Cadiz. 

Routes of Trade. — From the mother city Tyre, and from all 
her important colonies and trading-posts, radiated long routes 
of land travel, by which articles were conveyed from the in- 
terior of the continents to the Mediterranean seaboard. Thus, 
amber was brought from the Baltic, through the forests of Ger- 
many, to the mouth of the river Padus (Po) in Italy. The tin 
of the British Isles was first brought across Gaul to the outlets 
of the Rhone, and there loaded upon the Phoenician ships. 
The trade with India was carried on by way of the Persian Gulf 
and the Red Sea, great caravans bearing the burdens from the 
ports at the heads of these seas across the Arabian and Syrian 
deserts to the warehouses of Tyre. Other routes led from 
Phoenicia across the Mesopotamian plains to Armenia, As- 
syria, Babylonia, Persia, and thence on to the very heart of 
Central Asia. 

Arts Disseminated by the Phoenicians. — We have dwelt at 
some length upon the maritime and land routes of the Phoe- 
nician traders, because of the light which the facts we have 
detailed shed upon the distribution of certain arts, and the 
spread of civilization, among the early peoples of the Mediter- 
ranean area. We can scarcely overestimate the influence of 
Phoenician culture and enterprise upon the civilization of Eu- 
rope. " Egypt and Assyria," says Lenormant, " were the birth- 
place of material civilization; the Canaanites [Phoenicians] 
were its missionaries." Most prominent of the arts which they 
introduced among all the nations with whom they traded was 
the art of alphabetical writing. 

6 



106 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

When the Shepherd Kings were expelled from Egypt, they 
carried with them twenty-two hieratic characters, which became 
the Phoenician alphabet. Now, all the true alphabets in use 
among different peoples are manifestly derived from the Phoe- 
nician. Lenormant classifies the various alphabets of the world 
into five great groups :* the Semitic, employed by the various 
Semitic nations of Western Asia ; the Grceco- Italic, used by the 
Greeks and Romans; the Iberian, employed in the Spanish 
Peninsula; the Northern, embracing the Runic alphabets in 
use among the early Germanic and Scandinavian tribes ; and 
the Indo-Homerite, including various alphabets in use among 
nations scattered from Arabia to India. 

These groups of alphabets correspond to the five great routes 
of maritime and land travel followed by the Phoenician traders. 
Wherever they went, they carried letters and the art of alpha- 
betical writing as " one of their exports." The characters were 
modified by the different peoples who adopted them ; yet, 
among all the different groups enumerated, it is easy to detect 
a family likeness, and to recognize in the Phoenician alphabet 
the mother of them all. 

It is supposed that the ancestors of the nations of Northern 
Europe were, at the time they first met the Phoenicians, living 
on the shores of the Black Sea. There they received the al- 
phabet, and carried it with them in their westward migrations 
into Europe. 

The introduction of letters among the different nations, vast 
as was the benefit which the gift conferred upon peoples just 
beginning to make advances in civilization, is only one of the 
many advantages which resulted to the early civilization of 
Europe from the commercial enterprise of the Phoenicians. It 
is probable that they first introduced among the semi-civilized 
tribes of that continent the use of bronze, which marks an epoch 
in their growing culture. Articles of Phoenician workmanship 

* Lenormant's " History of the East," vol. ii. 



THE PHOENICIANS. 107 

are found in the earliest tombs of the Greeks, Etruscans, and 
Romans; and in very many of the manufactures of these peo- 
ples may be traced the influence of Phoenician art. 

Great Enterprises Aided by the Phoenicians. — While scatter- 
ing the ^errns of civilization and culture broadcast over the en- 
tire Mediterranean area, the enterprising Phoenicians were also 
lending aid to almost every great undertaking of antiquity. 
King Hiram of Tyre furnished Solomon with artisans and 
skilled workmen, and with great rafts of timber from Lebanon, 
for building the splendid temple at Jerusalem. The Phoenicians 
also provided timber from their fine forests for the construction 
of the great palaces and temples of the Assyrians, the Baby- 
lonians, and the Egyptians. They built for the Persian king 
Xerxes the famous Hellespontine bridges over which he march- 
ed his immense army into Greece. They furnished contingents 
of ships to the kings of Nineveh and Babylon for naval opera- 
tions both upon the Mediterranean and the Persian and Ara- 
bian gulfs. Their fleets served as transports and convoys to 
the expeditions of the Persian monarchs aiming at conquest in 
Asia Minor or Europe. They formed, too, the naval branch 
of the armaments of the Pharaohs ; for the Egyptians hated 
the sea, and never had a native fleet. And it was Phoenician 
sailors that, under the orders of Pharaoh-Necho, circumnavi- 
gated Africa — an undertaking which, although attendant per- 
haps with less advantages to the world, still is reckoned quite 
as remarkable, considering the remote age in which it was ac- 
complished (604-601 B.C.), as the circumnavigation of the globe 
by the Portuguese navigator Magellan more than two thou- 
sand years later. 



108 ANCIENT HISTORY. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. 
(From early times to 330 B.C.) 

Kinship of the Medes and Persians. — We have already spok- 
en of the early home of the Aryan peoples, north of the Hindu 
Kush Mountains. It was in very remote times, probably be- 
fore 2000 b.c, that some tribes, separating themselves from the 
other members of the Aryan family, crossed the southern ranges 
and sought new abodes on the plains of Iran. They drove-out 
or absorbed a people of Turanian race whom they found in 
possession of the land. The tribes that settled in the south 
became known as the Persians ; while those that took posses- 
sion of the mountain regions of the northeast were called 
Medes. The same in race, they had the same language, re- 
ligion, and customs. So closely were they allied (although 
the Median character was somewhat modified by amalgamation 
with the native tribes) that the ancient writers always coupled 
the names, speaking of them as the " Medes and Persians." 
Thus we find their names associated in the famous legend, 
"The law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not." 

The Medes at first the Leading Race.— Although the Per- 
sians were destined to rise to an overshadowing pre-eminence 
in the double-headed state, still the Medes were at first the 
leading people. Cyaxares was their first prominent leader and 
king. We have already seen how, aided by the Babylonians, 
he overthrew the last king of Nineveh, and burned that capital, 
625 b.c. Cyaxares was followed by his son Astyages, during 
whose reign the Persians revolted, overthrew the Median 



THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. log 

power, and thenceforth held the place of leadership and au- 
thority. 

Reign of Cyrus the Great (558-529 b.c). — The leader of the 
revolt against the Medes was Cyrus, a Persian prince, who was 
a great favorite of the Median king Astyages. According to 
Herodotus he was the grandson of that monarch. However 
this may be, the young prince passed much of his time at the 
Median court, in the famous " seven-walled city " of Ecbatana ; 
as it was usual among Oriental monarchs for the sons of vassal 
kings to be kept at the court of the suzerain, partly as hostages 
for the loyalty of the subject states, and partly to be trained in 
his interests."* While a resident there he planned a revolt 
which should free his country from the Median yoke. His 
plans were successful. The Median dynasty, as we have seen, 
was overthrown; but in the struggle for independence the 
father of Cyrus was slain. So the fortunes of battle made 
Cyrus, on the same day, king of the Persians and master of the 
Medes. 

By his soldierly genius and energy, Cyrus soon built up an 
empire more extended than any over which the sceptre had 
yet been swayed by Oriental monarch. It stretched from the 
Indus to the farthest limits of Asia Minor. One of the king- 
doms in the latter country which Cyrus overthrew was Lydia, 
whose monarch, Crcesus, was one of the richest of all the kings 
of the East, so that his name has passed into the proverb 
"Rich as Crcesus." In our account of Babylon, we have al- 
ready told how Cyrus captured that city, and added Babylonia 
as a province to his vast dominions. 

While leading an expedition against some Scythian tribe — 
probably the Massagetae — Cyrus received the wound that in a 
few days ended his life. He was buried at Pasargadae, the old 
capital of the empire, and there his tomb stands to-day, sur- 

* Smith's "History of the East," p. 539. 



HO ANCIENT HISTORY. 

rounded by the ruins of the magnificent buildings with which 
he adorned that city. The following inscription is said to have 
been placed, according to the wish of the great conqueror, with- 
in his tomb: "O man, whoever thou art, and whencesoever 
thou comest, I am Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire : 
envy me not the little earth that covers my body." * 

Character of Cyrus. — Cyrus, notwithstanding his seeming 
love for war and conquest, possessed a kindly and generous dis- 
position. Almost universal testimony has ascribed to him the 
purest and most beneficent character of any Eastern monarch. 
Indeed, some have exalted him to be the prototype and fore- 
runner of Christ. Upon the capture of Babylon, he set free 
the Hebrews, whom the Babylonians had held in long captivity, 
and aided them in rebuilding Jerusalem and the Temple, which 
had been sacked and burned by Nebuchadnezzar. He was, 
more than any other Oriental king, accessible to his subjects, 
and by his free and open way with them won their undying 
affection and loyalty. They were fond of calling him "Father." 
He refused to treat harshly those whom the fortunes of war 
threw into his power; and often he forgave and readmitted to 
favor those that had plotted against his life and crown. Many 
stories are told by the ancient writers which illustrate the 
energy of his actions, the alertness of his mind, and the good- 
ness of his heart. 

Reign of Cambyses (529-522 b.c). — Cyrus the Great left two 
sons, Cambyses and Smerdis: the former, as the oldest, in- 
herited the sceptre and the title of king. He began a despotic 
and unfortunate reign by causing his brother, whose influence 
he feared, to be put to death. With far less ability than his 
father for their execution, he conceived even vaster projects of 
conquest and dominion. Asia had hitherto usually afforded a 

* Vaux's " Nineveh and Persepolis," p. 99. 



THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. Ill 

sufficient field for the ambition of Oriental despots. Cambyses 
determined to add the country of Africa to the vast inheritance 
received from his father. Upon some slight pretext, he in- 
vaded Egypt, captured Memphis, and ascended the Nile to 
Thebes. From here he sent an army of 50,000 men to subdue 
the oasis of Ammon, in the Libyan Desert. Of the vast host 
not a man returned from the expedition. It is thought that 
the army was overwhelmed and buried by one of those fatal 
storms, called simooms, that so frequently sweep over those 
dreary wastes of sand. 

Cambyses had meanwhile sent an embassy to the Ethio- 
pians, a people of large and powerful frame, demanding their 
submission ; but he had received in reply a bow, with the mes- 
sage that when a Persian archer could bend it, then Cambyses 
might think. of making war against the Ethiopians. The king 
immediately set his army in motion, to punish their insolence; 
but the terrors of the Nubian Desert, rather than the valor of 
the foe, caused him to turn back, with the object of the expe- 
dition very unsatisfactorily accomplished. 

Irritated by the ill-success of his plans, and believing that 
the Egyptian priests were taking advantage of his misfortunes 
to foment dissatisfaction among the people, he determined to 
strengthen his authority by destroying the power and influence 
of the sacerdotal order, and uprooting the ancient religion of 
the country. He stabbed, with his own hand, the sacred bull 
Apis, and caused the priests to be publicly scourged for deceiv- 
ing the people — tying to them about the gods; a charge from 
which it would have been difficult for them to free themselves. 

Cambyses had set out on his return to Persia, when news 
was brought to him that his brother Smerdis had usurped the 
throne, and caused himself to be proclaimed king. A Magian 
impostor, who resembled the murdered Smerdis, had person- 
ated him, and actually grasped the sceptre. Cambyses, de- 
pressed in spirits by the small success attending his expe- 
dition, was' entirely disheartened by this startling intelligence, 
and in despair took his own life. 



112 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Reign of the Pseudo-Smerdis (522-521 b.c.).— The circum- 
stances of this reign are interesting on account of the insight 
they give us into the life of an Oriental monarch, and the light 
they throw upon religious matters. There were at this time 
two opposing religions in Persia: Zoroastrianism, which taught 
the simple worship of one God under the name of Ormazd; 
and Magianism, a less pure faith, whose followers were fire- 
worshippers. The usurpation which placed Smerdis on the 
throne was planned by the Magi, Smerdis himself being a fire- 
priest. Of course the people were kept in profound ignorance 
of the real character of the new king, and they believed that 
they had for a monarch the true son of the Great Cyrus. For 
seven months Smerdis succeeded in concealing the fraud from 
the nation at large. He took every precaution to prevent the 
facts from becoming known. The wives of his harem, many of 
whom must have known the real Smerdis, were kept apart in 
different chambers, and no one was allowed to see them. 
Smerdis himself kept close within the walls of his palace, and 
admitted no one to an audience that had known the murdered 
prince. But all was in vain. The very precautions that Smer- 
dis took awakened suspicion, and at last the fraud was dis- 
covered. Several nobles, indignant at the deception that had 
been practised, forced their way to the presence of Smerdis, 
and the false king paid for his short-lived authority and royal 
honors with his life. 

Reign of Darius I. (521-486 b.c). -The leader of the nobles 
who rescued the sceptre from the grasp of the false Smerdis was 
Darius, son of Hystaspes. We are left in no doubt respecting 
his descent and titles, for on his tomb is this legend : "Darius, 
the Great King, the King of kings; the King of all inhabited 
countries ; the King of this great earth, far and near ; the son of 
Hystaspes, an Achaemenian ; a Persian, the son of a Persian ; 
an Aryan, of Aryan descent." 

The first act of Darius was to punish, by a general massacre, 



THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. II3 

the Magian priests for the part they had taken in the usurpation 
by Smerdis. The pure Zoroastrian worship was re-instated; 
and the temples which had been destroyed by the Magians, or 
fire-worshippers, were restored. All the inscriptions of Darius 
evince great zeal for the restored religion, and breathe a spirit 
of pious dependence upon Ormazd. 

For several years the monarch was busy suppressing revolts 
in almost every province of his wide dominions. In all the 
ancient Oriental despotisms, disaffections and uprisings were 
almost always the accompaniment of dynastic changes. A 
sovereignty acquired by the sword must be maintained by the 
same means. 

With quiet and submission secured throughout the empire, 
Darius gave himself, for a time, to the arts of peace. He built 
a palace at Susa, and erected magnificent structures at Per- 
sepolis ; reformed the administration of the government, mak- 
ing such wise and lasting changes that he has been called " the 
second founder of the Persian Empire ;" established post-roads, 
and instituted a coinage for the realm ; and upon the great rock 
of Behisturr, a lofty smooth-faced cliff on the western frontier 
of Persia, caused to be inscribed the records of all his achieve- 
ments. 

And now the Great King, Lord of Western Asia and of 
Egypt, conceived and entered upon the execution of vast de- 
signs of conquest, the far-reaching effects of which were des- 
tined to live long after he had passed away. Inhospitable 
steppes on the north, and burning deserts on the south, whose 
shifting sands within a period yet fresh in memory had been 
the grave of a Persian army, seemed to be the barriers which 
nature herself had set for the limits of empire in these direc- 
tions. But on the eastern flank of the kingdom the rich and 
crowded plains of India invited the conqueror with promises of 
endless spoils and revenues; while on the west a new continent, 
full of unknown mysteries, presented virgin fields never yet 
traversed by the army of an Eastern despot. 

6* 



114 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Darius determined to extend the frontiers of his empire in 
both these directions. He first despatched, according to credi- 
ble accounts, two naval expeditions of observation — one to seek 
information respecting the Indus country, and the other to make 
such investigations of the western seas and Grecian states as 
might be needful to his plans. 

At one blow Northern India was brought under Persian 
authority; and thus with a single effort were the eastern limits 
of the empire pushed out so as to include one of the richest 
countries of Asia — one which henceforth returned to the Great 
King an annual revenue vastly larger than that of any other 
province hitherto acquired, not even excepting the rich district 
of Babylonia. 

With an army of more than 700,000 men, Darius, aided by 
the ships of his Grecian subject allies, now crossed the Helles- 
pont, and, passing the Danube, penetrated far into what is now 
Russia, which was then occupied by Scythian hordes. Adopt- 
ing the same tactics employed by the Russians 2000 years 
later, when Napoleon led an army of nearly equal strength into 
the same country, the natives retreated as the Persians ad- 
vanced, refusing battle, filling the wells, and destroying every- 
thing that might be of service to the enemy. After a short 
campaign of two months, Darius retreated from the country, 
effecting the movement, however, without those terrible losses 
and experiences which have made the later expedition the 
gloomiest episode of modern history. 

The most significant campaign in Europe was yet to follow. 
In 500 B.C., the Ionian cities in Asia Minor subject to the Per- 
sian authority revolted. The Greeks of the continent very 
naturally lent aid to their sister states. Sardis, an important 
city of Lydia, held by the Persians, was sacked and burned by 
the insurgents. With the revolt crushed and punished with 
great severity, and with his power re-established to the Helles- 
pont, Darius determined to chastise the Athenians for their 
insolence in giving aid to his rebellious subjects. Herodotus 



THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. 115 

tells us that he appointed a person whose sole duty it was 
daily to stir up the purpose of the king with the words, " Mas- 
ter, remember the Athenians." 

A large land and naval armament was fitted out and placed 
under the command of Mardonius, son-in-law of Darius. The 
land forces suffered severe losses at the hands of the bar- 
barians of Thrace, and the fleet was wrecked by a violent storm 
off Mount Athos, and three hundred ships were lost (492 B.C.). 

Two years after this disaster, another expedition, consisting 
of 120,000 men, under the command of Datis and Artaphernes, 
was borne by ships across the /Egean to the plains of Mara- 
thon. The details of the significant encounter that there took 
place between the Persians and the Athenians will be given 
when we come to narrate the history of Greece. We need now 
simply note the result — the complete overthrow of the Persian 
forces by the Greeks under Miltiades (490 B.C.). 

Darius, angered beyond measure by the failure of the expe- 
dition, stirred up all the provinces of his vast empire, and called 
for new levies from far and near, resolved upon leading in per- 
son such an army into Greece that the insolent Athenians 
should be crushed at a single blow, and that the tarnished 
glory of the Persian arms should be quickly restored. In the 
midst of these preparations the king suddenly died, in the year 
486 B.C. 

Reign of Xerxes I. (486-465 b.c.).— The successor of Darius, 
his son Xerxes, though himself more inclined to indulge in the 
ease and luxury of the palace than to subject himself to the 
hardship and discipline of the camp, was urged by those about 
him to an active prosecution of the plans of his father. 

Mustering the contingents of the different provinces of his 
empire, Xerxes led his vast army, numbering over 2,000,000 
fighting men, besides an equal number of attendants, over the 
bridges he had caused to be thrown across the Hellespont, 
crushed the Spartan guards at the Pass of Thermopylae, pushed 



Il6 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

on into Attica, and laid Athens in ruins. But there fortune 
forsook him. At the naval battle of Salamis, his fleet was cut 
to pieces by the Grecian ships ; and the king, making a pre- 
cipitate retreat back into Asia, hastened to his capital, Susa. 
Here, in the pleasures of the harem, he sought solace for his 
wounded pride and broken hopes. 

The Bible story of Esther throws a vivid light upon the 
inner life of a Persian court at this time, and furnishes many 
an interesting passage in the closing years of the reign of 
Xerxes — for he is doubtless the Ahasuerus of the Hebrew 
writers. He at last fell a victim to palace intrigue, being slain 
in his own chamber 465 B.C. 

The Decline of the Persian Empire. — The power and suprem- 
acy of the Persian monarchy passed away with the reign of 
Xerxes. The story of the empire for the last one hundred and 
forty years of its existence is simply a repetition of the history 
of all conquering states. Power acquired by conquest, and 
wealth gained by robbery, are certain, in the end, to corrupt 
and weaken the possessor. The closing period of the Persian 
Empire is one long recital of shameful briberies, corruptions, 
court intrigues, and assassinations. As the hand that wielded 
the sceptre grew weaker, the more remote or powerful provinces 
cast off their allegiance ; and the records of the kings for this 
era are dreary enumerations of the wars and campaigns un- 
dertaken to punish conspiracies or crush open revolt. The 
rising power of the Grecian states in the West was also a con- 
stant peril and menace in that quarter. 

This period of turbulence and anarchy is spanned by the 
reigns of Artaxerxes I., surnamed by the Greeks Longimanus, 
the Long-handed; Xerxes II., who reigned only forty-five 
days; Sogdianus, who held the throne less than one year; 
Darius II., surnamed Ochus; Artaxerxes II., called Mnemon 
for his remarkable memory, during whose reign took place the 
famous expedition of the Ten Thousand Greeks under Cyrus, 



THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. 



117 



the brother of Artaxerxes, an account of which will be given in 
connection with Grecian history; Artaxerxes III., or Ochus; 
and Darius III., known also as Codomannus. 

The Last of the Persian Kings. — That mysterious allotment 
of Providence by which the consequences of the follies and 
crimes of a long line of ancestors fall upon an innocent de- 
scendant is illustrated anew in the sad story of Darius III., 
the last of the Persian kings. He was comely in person, gen- 
erous in disposition, and free from most of those faults which 
rendered infamous the reigns of his predecessors. Yet it was 
his misfortune to live to see the weakened empire fall to pieces 
in his hands, and himself a hunted fugitive in the obscurest 
province of his dominions. 

The revelations of the preceding reigns invited the Macedo- 
nians to the invasion and conquest of the empire. Marathon, 
Salamis, and Plataea had shown the immense superiority of the 
free soldiery of Greece over the splendid but servile armies of 
Persia, that were often driven to battle with the lash. The 
march of the Ten Thousand through the very heart of the do- 
minions of the Great King had demonstrated the amazing in- 
ternal weakness of the empire. The condition of the Persian 
monarchy at this time was very like that of the Roman Empire 
just before its fall. A single blow will suffice to shatter the 
splendid fabric into ruins. 

Alexander, the son of Philip of Macedon, was the destined 
destroyer. In the year 334 B.C., that conqueror led a small 
army of 35,000 Greeks across the Hellespont. The three great 
battles of Granicus, Issus, and Arbela decided the fate of the 
Persian Empire. Darius fled from the last field, on the plains 
of Assyria, only to be treacherously assassinated by one of his 
own generals, Bessus, satrap of Bactria. When Alexander, who 
was pushing on in close pursuit, came upon the body of the 
murdered king, which lay by the wayside, he burst into tears, 
and covered the remains with his own mantle. " With this 



Il8 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

pathetic scene closes the story of the Persian Empire (b.c. 

330)." 

The succeeding movements of Alexander, and the establish- 
ment by him of the short-lived Macedonian monarchy upon the 
ruins of the Persian state, are matters that properly belong to 
Grecian history, and will be narrated in a following chapter. 



THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. 



II 9 



TABLE OF KINGS OF MEDIA AND PERSIA. 



Kings of Media. 



Kings of Persia. 



f Phraortes ? -633 

j Cyaxares 633-593 

I Astyages 593~55 8 

f c y ru s 55 8 -5 2 9 

Cambyses 529-522 

Pseudo-Smerdis 522-521 

Darius 1 521-486 

Xerxes 1 486-465 

Artaxerxes 1 465-425 

Xerxes II 425 

Sogdianus 425-424 

Darius II 424-405 

Artaxerxes II 4°5-359 

Artaxerxes III 359-338 

Arses 33 8 "33 6 

Darius III 336-33° 



120 ANCIENT HISTORY. 



CHAPTER XI. 

INSTITUTIONS, RELIGION, AND ARCHITECTURE OF THE ANCIENT 
PERSIANS. 

The Persian Government. — Before the reign of Darius I., the 
government of the Persian Empire was like that of all the great 
monarchies that had preceded it ; that is, it consisted of a great 
number of subject states, which were allowed to retain their 
own kings and manage their own affairs, only paying tribute 
and homage, and furnishing contingents in time of war, to the 
Great King. 

We have seen how weak was this rude and primitive type of 
government. Darius conceived an entirely new and far better 
form— one which the Romans reproduced, if they did not imi- 
tate it. This system of Darius is known as the satrapal. The 
entire kingdom was divided into about twenty provinces, over 
each of which was placed a governor, called a satrap, appointed 
by the king. These officials held their position at the pleasure 
of the sovereign, and were thus rendered his subservient creat- 
ures. Each province contributed to the income of the king a 
stated revenue. After raising this, the governor was at liberty 
to collect as much more as he needed to sustain such a court 
and retinue as his tastes might dictate. These being often ca- 
pricious and extravagant, the taxes were usually exorbitant and 
oppressive ; but so long as the annual stipend was received at 
the capital, no inquiries were likely to be made. The meas- 
ures of these satraps were often cruel and despotic : they held 
the power of life and death; and justice with them was too 
frequently a thing of price and purchase. 

There were provisions in the system by which the king might 



INSTITUTIONS, ETC., OF THE ANCIENT PERSIANS. 121 

be apprized of the loyalty of his satraps, and thus the whole 
dominion was firmly cemented together ; and the facility with 
which almost sovereign states — which was the real character 
of the different parts of the empire under the old system — 
could plan and execute revolt was removed. 

Literature and Religion: Zoroastrianism. — The literature of 
the ancient Persians was entirely religious. Their sacred book 
is called the Zendavesta. It is composed of eight parts, the 
oldest of which is named the Vendidad. This consists of 
hymns and invocations believed to have been composed before 
2000 B.C. The religious system of the Persians, as taught in 
the Zendavesta, is known as Zoroastrianism, from Zoroaster, its 
founder. This great reformer and teacher is now supposed by 
many scholars to have lived and taught about two thousand 
years before our era, and thus to have been a contemporary of 
Abraham. 

Zoroastrianism seems to have been a revolt against poly- 
theistic tendencies in the old Aryan religion. Zoroaster la- 
bored to lead his people back to the simple faith of their an- 
cestors. He taught belief in a Supreme Being, called Ahura 
Mazda, or Ormazd ; and his precepts inculcated virtue and 
purity. His teachings produced a religious schism among the 
hitherto united Indo- Iranian peoples, and led to their final 
separation, and to the establishment of the antagonistic systems 
of Brahminism in Hindustan and Zoroastrianism in Persia. 

Dualism in the Persian Religion. — The system of Zoroaster 
was much modified by the nature of the region that became 
the home of the Iranian peoples, and also by the sensuous wor- 
ship of the Turanian and Hamitic tribes with which they came 
in contact. 

Persia is a country of sharp contrasts: winters of bitter cold 
are followed closely by springs of surpassing freshness and 
beauty, and these are quickly succeeded by hot, withering sum- 



122 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

mers. Frightful deserts alternate with fertile and lovely valleys. 
Good and evil powers seemed thus, to the observant minds of 
those early peoples, to be waging an ever-renewed conflict in 
the world around them. Within themselves, also, health and 
disease, vice and virtue, evil and good, seemed ever contending, 
each for the mastery. Hence arose the system of belief known 
as dualism, the germs of which are traceable in the earliest 
Aryan by nr s They imagined that over against the good 
Ormazd there was a " dark spirit," Ahriman, who was constant- 
ly striving to destroy the good creations of Ormazd by creat- 
ing all evil powers — storm, drought, pestilence, noxious animals, 
weeds and thorns in the world without, and evil in the heart 
of man within. From all eternity these two powers had been 
contending for the mastery; in the present neither had the de- 
cided advantage; but in the near future Ormazd would triumph 
over Ahriman and evil be forever destroyed. 

The duty of man was to aid Ormazd by working with him 
against the evil-loving Ahriman. He must labor to eradicate 
every evil and vice in his own bosom ; to reclaim the earth 
from barrenness; and to kill all bad animals — frogs, toads, 
snakes, lizards — which Ahriman had created. Herodotus saw 
with amazement the Magian priests armed with weapons and 
engaged in slaying these animals as a "pious pastime." Agri- 
culture was a sacred calling, for the husbandman was reclaim- 
ing the ground from the curse of the Dark Spirit. Thus men 
might become co-workers with Ormazd in the mighty work of 
overthrowing and destroying the kingdom of the wicked Ahri- 
man. 

The evil man was he who allowed vice and degrading pas- 
sions to find a place in his own soul, and neglected to extermi- 
nate noxious animals and weeds, and help redeem the earth 
from the barrenness and sterility created by the enemy of Or- 
mazd. 

After death the souls of the good and bad alike must pass 
along a narrow bridge : the good soul passes in safety, and is 



INSTITUTIONS, ETC., OF THE ANCIENT PERSIANS. 1 23 

admitted to the presence of Ahura Mazda; while the evil soul 
is sure to fall from the sharp path into a pit of woe, the dwell- 
ing-place of Ahriman. 

Zoroastrianism Influenced by Magianism. — Zoroastrianism 
was also deeply influenced by the religion of the ancient people 
with which the Aryans blended, especially in the Median prov- 
inces. There, among the mountains of the Zagros region, flour- 
ished a sort of sensuous nature-worship, called Magianism, in 
which the elements — fire, earth, air, and water — were esteemed 
sacred and were made objects of worship. Fire was regarded 
with special veneration, as the purest symbol of the Supreme 
Being. This religion was really but a modified form of the Sab- 
seism of the early Chaldaeans. The lofty summits of the moun- 
tains were crowned with altars, upon which burned continually 
the Magian fires. These were kept burning from generation to 
generation. The system possessed a venerable priesthood and 
a ceremonial of worship that appealed to the grosser senses. 

Zoroastrianism, too refined and spiritual to maintain its hold 
upon a semi-barbarous people, naturally became corrupted by 
the sensuous worship of the Magians. The two religions 
blended; yet the faith of the conquering Aryans ever retained 
the most prominent place in the new worship. The form was 
Magian, but its spirit was Zoroastrian. It never became a 
really idolatrous worship, and was, in all its stages, the purest 
and most spiritual religion held by any people of antiquity, 
save that professed by the ancient Hebrews. 

Between the Persians and the Hebrews, indeed, there existed 
a bond of sympathy in their religious faith. Cyrus restored the 
captive Jews to Jerusalem and aided them in the restoration 
of their Temple, in which, as in the case of the Persian sanc- 
tuary, appeared no statue of the object of worship. Xerxes 
thought it a pious act to burn the temples of the Greeks, and 
Cambyses himself stabbed the bull Apis, and scourged the 
Egyptian priests for teaching the people to believe that it was 



124 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

a god. These acts were prompted by that same hatred of idol- 
atry, and zeal for the spiritual worship of the Eternal Unseen, 
that led the Israelites to overturn the altars, cut down the 
groves, and slay the priests of the idolatrous Canaanites. 

Persian Architecture. — Although the ancient Persians did 
nothing in science and philosophy, still in architecture they 
originated an order superior to any that the nations which pre- 
ceded them had produced. But notwithstanding that Persian 
structural art was home -born, it was greatly influenced and 
modified by both that of Assyria and of Egypt. 

The simple religious faith of the Persians discouraged (though 
it did not prohibit) the erection of temples : their sacred archi- 
tecture scarcely included more than an altar and its pedestal. 
The palace of the monarch was the structure that absorbed the 
best efforts of the Persian artist. 

The first step in royal architecture was taken by the Medes, 
who, living in a mountainous and woody country, built wooden 
structures for their palaces. In such edifices, the column, 
formed of a tree- trunk, was naturally a prominent feature. 
When the Persians gained supremacy in the state, they bor- 
rowed the architecture of the Medes; but, living in a country 
where wood was scarce and stone abundant, they reproduced 
the wooden residences of the Median kings in the latter ma- 
terial. 

In imitation of the inhabitants of the Valley of the Euphra- 
tes, they raised the royal residence on a lofty terrace, or plat- 
form. Here again they transformed the mud -built palace- 
mound of the Assyrians into stone, and at Persepolis raised, 
for the substruction of their palaces, an immense platform of 
massive masonry, which is one of the most wonderful monu- 
ments of the world's ancient builders. This terrace, which is 
uninjured by the 2300 years that have passed since its erec- 
tion, is about 1500 feet long, 1000 feet wide, and 40 feet high. 
The summit is reached by broad stairways of stone, pronounced 



INSTITUTIONS, ETC., OF THE ANCIENT PERSIANS. 1 25 

by Niebuhr and Fergusson the finest work of the kind that the 
ancient or even the modern world can boast. 

Remains of the Persian Palaces. — Surmounting this platform 
are the ruins of the palaces of several of the Persian monarchs, 
from Cyrus the Great to Artaxerxes Ochus. The ruins con- 
sist chiefly of walls and massive doors and windows, each cut 
from a single stone. The whole mass of building is supposed 
to have been burned by Alexander during a drunken frolic. 
Thirteen lofty columns, sixty feet in height, mark the site of 
the Hall of Xerxes — the audience chamber, or throne-room, 
of the Great King, beneath which he sat to hear and judge the 
matters of his subjects. Colossal winged bulls, copied from 
the Assyrians, stand as wardens at the gateway of the ruined 
palaces. 

Numerous sculptures in bass-relief decorate the faces of the 
walls, and these throw much light upon the manners and cus- 
toms of the ancient Persian kings. The successive palaces 
increase, not only in size, but in sumptuousness of adornment, 
thus registering those changes which we have been tracing in 
the national history. The residence of Cyrus was small and 
modest, while that of Artaxerxes Ochus equalled in size the 
famous palace of the Assyrian Sargon. Again, the sculptures 
that adorn the residences of the earlier kings, Cyrus and Da- 
rius, represent the monarch engaged in bold and manly com- 
bat with lions and other monsters ; while in the halls and 
chambers of the palaces of Xerxes these give place to repre- 
sentations of servants bearing articles of luxury intended for 
royal use. " A tone of mere sensual enjoyment is thus given to 
the later edifice which is far from characterizing the earlier ; 
and the decline at the court, which history indicates as rapid 
about this period, is seen to have stamped itself, as such 
changes usually do, upon the national architecture."* 

* Rawlinson's "Ancient Monarchies," vol. iii. p. 295. 



126 ANCIENT HISTORY. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE HEROIC OR LEGENDARY AGE OF GREECE. 
(From earliest times to about noo B.C.) 

Divisions of Greece. — Long arms of the sea divide the Gre- 
cian peninsula into three parts, which we may call Northern, 
Central, and Southern Greece. The southern portion, joined 
to the mainland by the Isthmus of Corinth, and now known as 
the Morea, was called by the ancients Peloponnesus, from Pe- 
lops, its fabled colonizer. 

Northern Greece included the ancient districts of Thessaly 
and Epirus. Thessaly consists mainly of a large and beautiful 
valley, walled in on all sides by rugged mountains. It was 
celebrated far and wide for the variety and beauty of its scenery. 
On its northern edge, between Olympus and Ossa, lay a beauti- 
ful glen, called the Vale of Tempe, the only pass by which the 
plain of Thessaly could be entered from the north. The dis- 
trict of Epirus stretched along the Ionian Sea on the west. In 
the gloomy recesses of its forests of oak was located the famous 
Dodonean oracle of Zeus. 

Central Greece was divided into eleven districts, or states. 
The most important of these were Acarnania, yEtolia, Phocis, 
Bceotia, and Attica. In Phocis was the city of Delphi, famous 
for its oracle and temple ; in Bceotia, the city of Thebes ; and 
in Attica was the brilliant Athens. 

Southern Greece, or Peloponnesus, was also divided among 
eleven states, of which the more important were Arcadia, em- 
bracing the central part of the peninsula ; Achaia, the northern 
part ; Argolis, the eastern ; and Messenia and Laconia, the 
southern. The last, called also Lacedaemon, was ruled by the 
city of Sparta, the great rival of Athens. 



THE HEROIC OR LEGENDARY AGE OF GREECE. 1 27 

Mountains. — The Cambunian Mountains form a lofty wall 
along a considerable reach of the northern frontier of Greece, 
shutting out at once the cold winds and hostile races from the 
north. Branching off at right angles to these mountains is 
the Pindus range, which runs south into Central Greece. In 
Northern Thessaly is Mount Olympus, the most celebrated 
mountain of the peninsula. The ancient Greeks thought it 
the highest mountain in the world (it is 9700 feet in height), 
and believed that its cloudy summit was the abode of the 
celestials. South of Olympus are Ossa and Pelion, famous in 
fable as the mountains which the giants, in their war against 
the gods, piled one upon another, in order to scale Olympus. 
Parnassus, in Central Greece, a beautiful mountain clad with 
trees and vines, and filled with fountains, was the favorite abode 
of the Muses. Near Athens are Hymettus, praised for its 
honey, and Pentelicus, famous for its marbles. Peloponnesus 
was rugged with mountains that radiated in all directions 
from the central country of Arcadia, which is often spoken of 
as the Switzerland of Greece. 

Islands about Greece. — Very much of the history of Greece 
is intertwined with the islands that lie about the mainland. 
On the east, in the ^Egean Sea, are the Cyclades, so called be- 
cause they form an irregular circle about the sacred isle of 
Delos, where was a famous temple of Apollo. Between the 
Cyclades and Asia Minor lie the Sporades, which islands, as 
the name implies, are sown irregularly over that portion of the 
^Egean. Just off the coast of Attica is the large island called 
by the ancients Eubcea, but known to us as Negropont. Close 
to the Asian shore are the three large islands of Lesbos, Chios, 
and Rhodes. Chios was widely known as being the home 
of the alleged descendants of Homer, called the Homerides. 
Rhodes became celebrated through its schools of oratory and 
sculpture. To the west of Greece lie the Ionian Islands, the 
largest of which was called Corcyra, now Corfu. The rugged 



128 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

island of Ithaca was the birthplace of Ulysses, the hero of the 
"Odyssey." Cythera, just south of Peloponnesus, was sacred 
to Venus, or Aphrodite, as it was here fable said she rose from 
the sea-foam. Beyond Cythera, in the Mediterranean, midway 
between Greece and Egypt, is the large island of Crete, famous 
for its Labyrinth and its legislator Minos. 

Other Lands Peopled by the Greeks. — Under the name of 
Hellas the ancient Greeks included not only Greece proper 
and the islands of the adjoining seas, but also the Hellenic 
cities in Asia Minor, in Southern Italy, and in Sicily, besides 
many other Grecian colonies scattered up and down the Med- 
iterranean and along the shores of the Euxine. "Wherever 
were Hellenes there was Hellas." During the later periods 
of Greek dominance, many magnificent cities, filled with Greek 
citizens, and characterized by Hellenic manners, language, and 
religion, were sprinkled thickly over the different provinces of 
Asia as far as the Indus. 

Influence of Country. — The nature and position of a country, 
as we have already seen illustrated in the case of Phoenicia, 
have much to do with the moulding of the character and the 
shaping of the history of its people. Mountains, isolating 
neighboring communities and shutting out conquering races, 
foster the spirit of independence and preserve freedom ; the 
sea, inviting abroad, and rendering easy intercourse with dis- 
tant countries, awakens the spirit of adventure and develops 
commercial enterprise. 

Now, Greece is at once a mountainous and maritime coun- 
try. Abrupt mountain-walls fence it off into a great number 
of isolated districts, each of which in ancient times became the 
abode of a distinct community or state. Hence the fragmen- 
tary character of its political history. The Hellenic states 
never coalesced to form a single nation. 

The peninsula was, moreover, by reason of deep arms and 



THE HEROIC OR LEGENDARY AGE OF GREECE. 1 29 

bays of the sea, converted into what was in effect an archipel- 
ago. Hence its people were early tempted to a seafaring life. 
The shores of the Mediterranean and the Euxine were dotted 
with Hellenic colonies. Intercourse with the old civiliza- 
tions of Egypt and Phoenicia stirred the naturally quick and 
versatile Greek intellect to early and vigorous thought. The 
islands strewn with seeming carelessness through the ALgenn 
Sea were "stepping-stones " which invited the earliest settlers 
of Greece to the delightful coast countries of Asia Minor, and 
blended the life and history of the opposite shores. 

Again, the beauty of Grecian scenery inspired many of the 
most striking passages of her poets; and it is thought that the 
exhilarating atmosphere and brilliant skies of Attica were not 
unrelated to the lofty achievements of the Athenian intellect. 

The Pelasgians. — The primitive inhabitants of Greece were 
called Pelasgians. They belonged to the great Indo-European 
family of nations, and were the Aryan pioneers in Greece and 
Italy, just as the Celts were the original Aryan intruders in 
Northwestern Europe. Whether, like the latter, the Pelasgians 
found a non-Aryan race in possession of the soil, we can only 
conjecture. In Italy this seems to have been the case, and the 
Etrurians are by some thought to be the remnant of such a 
primitive people. If they encountered such a race in Greece, 
they so thoroughly exterminated it that no trace of its ex- 
istence can be found. The Pelasgians, when they entered 
the peninsula — probably as early as 2000 B.C. — had already 
advanced beyond the savage state. They cultivated the soil, 
protected their cities with walls, and possessed laws and 
government. 

Foreign Influence. — The Pelasgians were a people capable 
of improvement, and appear during the first centuries of the 
period we are considering to have gradually developed in all 
that pertains to civilization. This growth and culture were 

7 



130 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

aided from without. The traditions of the Greeks tell of the 
coming to their country of settlers from Egypt, Phoenicia, and 
Phrygia. From Egypt came Cecrops, bringing with him the 
arts and learning and priestly wisdom of the Nile Valley. From 
Phoenicia Cadmus brought the letters of the alphabet, and 
founded the city of Thebes. The Phrygian Pelops settled in 
the southern peninsula, which was called after him Peloponne- 
sus. It is possible that the only historical basis for some of 
these traditions is simply the advantage derived by the Greeks 
from their commercial intercourse with the different nations of 
the Western Mediterranean. 

The Hellenes. — But it is not alone these foreign influences 
which account for the rapid progress made by the Pelasgians — 
a progress which in a few centuries carried them in some di- 
rections to a point barely yet attained by modern nations. 
Dwelling in Epirus was a community called Hellenes, a people 
of the same race and language as the Pelasgians, but whom cir- 
cumstances had moulded into a somewhat different life. They 
possessed more of the martial spirit, and were more cultured 
than the kindred communities about them. The nation was 
divided into four great branches ; namely, the ^Eolians, the 
Achaeans, the Ionians, and the Dorians. 

Pushed forward probably by the pressure of tribes on the 
north, these Hellenes passed from Epirus into Thessaly, and 
thence into the regions to the south, pressing on until by con- 
quest or peaceful settlement they had insinuated themselves 
among all, or nearly all, the Pelasgian communities of the pen- 
insula. Now took place just what happened when the Ro- 
mans, at a later date, conquered and Romanized Italy, and so 
much of the Mediterranean world. The Pelasgians were com- 
pletely Hellenized. The country is henceforth known as the 
land of Hellas. The two peoples so blend that their influ- 
ence henceforth flows out in an inseparable stream over the 
surrounding regions. 



THE HEROIC OR LEGENDARY AGE OF GREECE. 131 

The Heroic Age (about 1400-1184 b.c). — The two centuries 
and more which followed the intermingling of the Hellenes 
and Pelasgians cover that portion of the Legendary period of 
Grecian history which is properly designated as the Heroic 
Age. The period closes with the return of the Grecian chief- 
tains from the siege of Troy. To this age belong the legends 
of the national heroes — Hercules, Theseus, Perseus, and many 
others — and the traditions of the Argonautic Expedition and 
of the Trojan War. 

The Heroes. — These were in some cases, perhaps, historical 
characters, but so much of myth and fable has gathered about 
them that it is impossible to separate that which is really his- 
toric from that which is purely fabulous. Thus they are 
represented as performing various labors, utterly absurd and 
impossible if we suppose them to have been done by a single 
man. But in some cases at least we may believe that the work 
was actually performed, only by a community or people, and 
then afterwards, when the manner in which it was done was 
forgotten, though traces of the work remained, it was attributed 
to these national heroes ; just as we have seen in Babylonia 
every great work attributed to Nimrod. 

The Argonautic Expedition. — The tale of this enterprise is 
told with many variations in the legends of the Greeks. Jason, 
a prince of Thessaly, with fifty companion heroes, set sail in a 
"fifty-oared galley," called the Argo, in search of a "golden 
fleece, " which was fabled to be nailed to a tree in the Grove of 
Mars, on the western shores of the Euxine, an inhospitable 
region of unknown terrors. The expedition is successful, and, 
after many wonderful adventures, returns in triumph with the 
sacred relic. 

Different meanings have been given to the legend. The 
Colchians were said to collect, by fleeces laid in the water, the 
particles of gold swept down by the swift streams of their 



132 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

mountains. The legend then would be the poetical way of 
telling of an early commerce between Greece and these gold- 
bearing regions of the Euxine. 

In whatever way we interpret the stories, doubtless we may 
find in them a little historical matter, at least as much as this — 
that the Greeks, in that very early age, undertook, either for 
purposes of commerce or adventure, expeditions of considera- 
ble length into the adjoining seas. 

The Trojan War (1 194- 1 184 b.c. ?). — The Trojan war was an 
event about which gathered a great circle of tales and poems, 
all full of an undying interest and fascination. Homer, in 
his great epic of the " Iliad," and a host of succeeding writers 
called the cyclic poets, rehearsed, with a charm of language 
and beauty of imagery never surpassed, the feats of the strug- 
gling heroes, Greek and Trojan, beneath the walls of Ilios. 

Ilios, or Troy, was the capital of a strong empire, Grecian in 
race and language, which had grown up in Asia Minor along 
the shores of the Hellespont. The traditions tell us how Paris, 
son of Priam, King of Troy, visited the Spartan king Menelaus, 
and ungenerously requited his hospitality by secretly bearing 
away to Troy his wife Helen, famous for her rare beauty. All 
the heroes of Greece flew to arms to avenge the wrong. A 
host of one hundred thousand warriors was speedily gathered. 
Agamemnon, brother of Menelaus and " king of men," was 
chosen leader of the expedition. Under him were the "lion- 
hearted Achilles," the "magnanimous Ulysses," Ajax and Dio- 
med — the most valiant heroes of all Hellas. Twelve hundred 
galleys bore the gathered clans from Greece across the ^Egean 
to the Trojan shores. 

For ten years the Grecians hold in close siege the city of 
Priam. On the plains beneath the walls of the capital, the 
warriors of the two armies fight in general battle or contend in 
single encounter. In one of these latter, Hector, son of Priam, 
is slain by Achilles; and his body, fastened to the chariot 



THE HEROIC OR LEGENDARY AGE OF GREECE. 133 

wheels of the victor, is dragged thrice about the walls of Troy. 
The city is at last taken through a device of the " crafty Ulys- 
ses." Upon the plain in sight of the walls is built a wooden 
statue of a horse, in the body of which are hidden several 
Grecian warriors. Then the Greeks retire to their ships, as 
though about to abandon the siege. The Trojans issue from 
their gates and gather in wondering crowds about the image. 
They believe it to be an offering sacred to Minerva, and so 
dare not destroy it ; but, on the other hand, they level a place 
in the walls of their city, and drag the statue within. At night 
the concealed warriors issue from the horse, open the gates of 
the city to the Grecians, and Troy is sacked and burned to the 
ground. The aged Priam is slain, after having seen his sons 
and many of his warriors perish before his face. yEneas, with 
his aged father Anchises and a few devoted followers, escapes, 
and, after long wanderings by land and by sea, becomes the 
fabled founder of the Roman race in Italy. 

It is a matter of difficulty to separate the purely historical 
from the poetical elements in this tradition. But the interest- 
ing discoveries of Schliemann upon the site of ancient Troy 
show that the poets followed actual occurrences more closely 
than an over-sceptical historical criticism was once willing to 
allow. Of course, much or most is poetical embellishment. 
But this much remains: that, either through rivalry or enmity, 
the different nations of Greece entered into a war against their 
kinsmen on the opposite shore of the ^Egean, which contest 
ended disastrously to the Trojan city and kingdom. That the 
struggle caused many Trojans to become fugitives and wander- 
ers, who settled as colonists in distant regions, is also probable. 

Return of the Grecian Chieftains. — After the fall of Troy, the 
Grecian chieftains and princes returned to Hellas. The poets 
represent the gods as withdrawing, for some reason, their pro- 
tection from the hitherto favored heroes. So, many of them 
were driven in endless wanderings over sea and land. Homer's 



134 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

"Odyssey" portrays the sufferings of Ulysses, King of Ithaca, 
impelled by divine wrath to long journeyings through strange 
seas. 

From the many traditions of this nature, we are led to infer 
that in some instances the return of the warriors was not unat- 
tended by adventure. In some cases advantage had been 
taken of the absence of the princes, and their thrones had 
been usurped. At Argos, ^Egisthus had won the unholy love 
of Clytaemnestra, wife and queen of Agamemnon, who on his 
return was murdered by the guilty couple. In pleasing con- 
trast with this we have exhibited to us the constancy of Pe- 
nelope, although sought by many suitors during the absence of 
her husband Ulysses. 

Still, though there was good ground, doubtless, for many of 
these tales, it appears that the greater number of the heroes 
came back to their homes in Greece, and enjoyed in peace the 
honors of their glorious achievements. For nearly two genera- 
tions there appears to have been throughout Hellas such a 
period of expansion and prosperity as often follows a success- 
ful war. 

One result of the Trojan enterprise was the opening of new 
and inviting regions for settlement to the colonists that, soon 
after the fall of Troy, we find emigrating from the mother-land 
and seeking new abodes. 

Hellenic Migrations and Settlements. — Scarcely half a cen- 
tury had passed after the Trojan War before the tribes of Greece, 
owing to pressure of intruders on the north, were thrown into 
great commotion. These movements, which uprooted large 
masses of population, and the love of enterprise and adventure 
inherent in the Greek disposition, caused the peoples of the 
mother-land to pour themselves over the adjoining islands and 
coasts, till Hellas embraced many of the most delightful dis- 
tricts of the Mediterranean area. 

In the Trojan regions of Asia Minor settled the ^Eolians, 



THE HEROIC OR LEGENDARY AGE OF GREECE. 135 

who crossed the JEgean from Boeotia about 1124 B - c - The 
coast to the south of them was coionized about 1040 B.C. by 
Ionian emigrants from the neighborhood of the Corinthian 
Gulf, whose splendid cities finally grew into the celebrated 
Ionian Confederacy. Still south of these were the Dorians, 
who crossed from the Peloponnesus, of which they had taken 
possession soon after the Trojan War. They also settled the 
important islands of Crete and Rhodes. 

At a later period — about the seventh century B.C. — the tide 
of emigration flowed to the west. Southern Italy was so 
thickly set with Greek cities as to become known as Magna 
Grsecia, "Great Greece." Here were founded the important 
cities of Tarentum and Cumae, the latter famed throughout both 
the Grecian and the Roman world on account of its oracle and 
sibyl. Syracuse, on the island of Sicily, Massilia (now Mar- 
seilles), in France, and Cyrene, on the coast of Africa, were 
large and flourishing Greek cities, radiating points of long 
routes of travel and trade. 

Many of these cities reflected honor on the mother-land 
through the just renown of their citizens. Indeed, very many 
of the greatest poets, philosophers, and scholars of the Hellenic 
race were natives of the Asiatic or European colonial cities. 
The mother-land owed much also to the healthy and stimulat- 
ing reaction of her colonies upon herself. We may think of 
Greece as holding the same place in the ancient Mediterranean 
world that England as a colonizer occupies in the world of to- 
day. As the latter is in danger of being eclipsed by her daugh- 
ters growing up about her, so the light of the mother-land in 
ancient Hellas was at times dimmed by the glory of her col- 
onies. 



136 ANCIENT HISTORY. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

EARLY HISTORY OF SPARTA. 

The civil or political history of Hellas for the five centuries 
preceding the great struggle between Persia and Greece is 
mainly the story of the two rival cities of Sparta and Athens. 
Yet we must not lose sight of the fact that during this period 
other states of Hellas, as Thebes and Corinth, and many cities 
in Asia Minor, were growing into political power and impor- 
tance; and that these helped at last to make up the resources 
of the Grecian world when she offered defiance to the Great 
King, and brought the East and the West to that memorable 
trial of strength known as the Persian War. In the present 
chapter we shall give some account of the beginnings of the 
Spartan state. 

Classes in the Spartan State.— In order to understand the 
institutions of the Spartans, we must first notice the three 
classes — Spartans, Provincials, and Helots — into which the 
population of Laconia, or Lacedaemon, was divided. The 
Spartans proper were the descendants of the conquerors of the 
country, and were Dorian in race and language. They com- 
posed but a small fraction of the entire population, and for 
greater safety all gathered at Sparta, from which they expelled 
the native inhabitants. Their relations to the conquered peo- 
ple were those of an army of occupation. Sparta, the capital, 
was simply a vast camp, unprotected by any walls until later 
and degenerate times. The martial valor of its citizens was 
thought its only proper defence. The Provincials, who consti- 
tuted the second class, were the subjugated Achasans, mingled 



EARLY HISTORY OF SPARTA. I37 

doubtless with their Dorian conquerors. They were allowed 
to retain possession of their lands, but were forced to pay 
tribute, and, in times of war, to fight for the glory and interest 
of their Spartan masters. The third and lowest class was com- 
posed of slaves, or serfs, called Helots. They literally had no 
rights which their Spartan lords felt bound to respect. If a 
Helot showed unusual powers of body or mind, he was secretly 
assassinated; as it was deemed unsafe to allow such qualities 
to be fostered in this servile class. It is affirmed that when 
the Helots grew too numerous for safety, their numbers were 
thinned by a deliberate massacre of the surplus population. 

The Lycurgean Institutions. — The laws and customs of the 
Spartans have excited more interest, perhaps, than any similar 
institutions of the ancient world. A mystery and halo were 
thrown about them by attributing them to the creative genius 
of a single lawgiver, Lycurgus. But it is a proverb that con- 
stitutions grow, and are not made. Circumstances were the 
real creators of those strange institutions — the circumstances 
which surrounded a small band of conquerors in the midst of 
a large and subject population. Nor were they the creation of 
an hour — the fruit of a happy inspiration. All the events of 
the early conquest, all the toils and dangers and hardships 
which the Dorian warriors endured in the subjugation of the 
land, and all the prudence and watchfulness necessary to the 
maintaining of themselves in the position of conquerors, helped 
to determine the unusual and harsh character of the laws and 
regulations of the Spartan state. 

The work of Lycurgus, then, was not that of a new creation. 
Back of him lay a long period of growth and development. 
His labor was that of a wise and far-seeing statesman, whose 
work it is to modify and shape already existing "habits and 
customs into rule and law;" to make additions and improve- 
ments; to anticipate growing tastes and tendencies. The very 
fact that the legislation of Lvcurgus was adopted and became 

> 



138 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

the system of a state shows that it must have been simply the 
outgrowth of customs and regulations already familiar and 
consequently acceptable to a large party at least among the 
Spartans. 

Lycurgus. — Lycurgus lived and did his work about the ninth 
century B.C. Many of the best years of his life were spent in 
exile. He acquainted himself with the laws and institutions 
of different lands by converse with their priests and sages. He 
is said to have studied with great zeal, under a poet-teacher, 
the laws of Minos, the famous lawgiver of the Cretans. Like 
the great legislator Moses, he became learned in all the wisdom 
of the Egyptians. Legend tells, too, how he journeyed as far 
as India and became a disciple of the Brahmins. 

The prime of life was almost passed when he returned to his 
native Sparta. So great was his reputation for learning and 
wisdom that he soon became the leader of a strong party. 
After much opposition, his laws and regulations were adopted 
by the Spartan people. Then, binding his countrymen by a 
solemn oath that they would carefully observe his laws during 
his absence, he set out on a pilgrimage to Delphi. In re- 
sponse to his inquiry, the oracle assured him that Sparta 
would endure and prosper as long as the people obeyed the 
laws he had given them. Lycurgus caused this answer to be 
carried to his countrymen; and then, that they might remain 
bound by the oath they had taken, he resolved never to return. 
He went into an unknown exile. Three lands claim to hold 
his dust ; and the Spartans in after-years perpetuated his 
memory and their own gratitude by temples and sacrifices in 
his honor. 

The Spartan Senate. — The constitution of Lycurgus pro- 
vided for a Senate, or Council, of twenty-eight elders. The 
two co-ordinate kings were also members, thus raising the num- 
ber to thirty. This body existed long before the time of Ly- 



EARLY HISTORY OF SPARTA. 1 39 

curgus. He probably simply modified or added to its powers 
and duties. No one could become a member of this body un- 
til he had reached the age of sixty. The manner of election 
to the Senate was peculiar. The committee who were to de- 
cide between the candidates were confined in a chamber near 
the public assembling-place, where, without seeing what was 
going on, they might hear the clamor of the people. Then the 
candidates were presented to the meeting, one by one, and the 
partisans of each greeted their favorite with great and pro- 
longed applause. It was the duty of the committee to decide 
which candidate had been received with the greatest enthusi- 
asm and clamor, and he was declared the people's choice. 
The proceedings in our own political conventions are not very 
dissimilar to this usage of the Spartan assembly. 

The powers of the Senate were at first almost unlimited, ex- 
tending to matters of life and death. After a time there was 
established the office of Ephor, which corresponded to the trib- 
unate among the Romans. The ephors gradually absorbed 
the powers and functions of the Senate, as well as the author- 
ity of the two associate kings. 

Regulations as to Lands and Money. — At the time of Ly cur- 
gus the lands of Laconia had become absorbed by the rich, 
leaving the masses in poverty and distress. It is certain that 
the lawgiver did much to remedy this ruinous state of affairs. 
The lands were redistributed, an equal portion being assigned 
to each Spartan citizen, and a smaller and less desirable por- 
tion to each Provincial. The Spartans were forbidden to en- 
gage in trade; all their time must be passed in the chase or 
in martial exercise in the palaestra. Iron was made the sole 
money of the state, in order that luxuries might not be intro- 
duced. Foreign traders refused and ridiculed this iron money. 
It is said that the price of many common articles in this Spar- 
tan coin made a load for a stout yoke of oxen. 



140 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

The Public Tables. — The most peculiar, perhaps, of the Ly- 
curgean institutions were the public meals. In order to correct 
the extravagance with which the tables of the rich were often 
spread, Lycurgus ordered that all the Spartan citizens should 
eat at public and common tables. Each person was required 
to contribute to these a certain amount of flour, fruit, game, or 
pieces from the sacrifices. None, not even the kings, were ex- 
cused from sitting at the common mess. One of the kings, 
returning from a long expedition, presumed to dine privately 
with his wife, but received therefor a severe reproof. 

A luxury-loving Athenian, once visiting Sparta and seeing the 
coarse fare of the citizens, is reported to have declared that 
now he understood the Spartan disregard of life in battle. 
" Any one," said he, " must naturally prefer death to life on 
such fare as this." 

Education of the Youth. — Children were considered as be- 
longing to the State. Every infant was brought before the 
Council of Elders ; and if it did not seem likely to become a 
robust and useful citizen, it was exposed in a mountain glen. 
At seven the education and training of the youth were commit- 
ted to the charge of public officers. The aim of the entire 
course, as to the boys, was to make a nation of soldiers who 
should despise toil and danger and prefer death to military 
dishonor. The mind was cultivated only so far as might con- 
tribute to the main object of the system. Reading and writing 
were untaught, and the art of rhetoric was despised. The 
Spartans had a profound contempt for the subtleties and liter- 
ary acquirements of the Athenians. Spartan brevity was a 
proverb. Boys were taught to respond in the fewest words 
possible. At the public tables they were not permitted to 
speak until questioned: they sat "silent as statues." An old 
writer quaintly says, " Lycurgus was for having the money 
bulky, heavy, and of little value ; and their language, on the 
contrary, very pithy and short, and a great deal of sense com- 
pressed in a few words." 



EARLY HISTORY OF SPARTA. 



I 4 I 



But while the mind was neglected, the body was carefully 
trained. In leaping, wrestling, and in hurling the spear the 
Spartans acquired the most surprising nimbleness and dex- 
terity. 

But before all things else was the Spartan youth taught to 
bear pain unflinchingly. He was inured to the cold of winter 
by being forced to pass through that season with only the light 
dress of summer. His bed was a bundle of river reeds. 
Sometimes he was placed before the altar of Artemis, and 
scourged just for the purpose of accustoming his body to pain. 
Frequently, it is said, boys died under the lash, without betray- 
ing their suffering by look or moan. 

Another custom tended to the same end as the foregoing 
usage. The boys were at times compelled to forage for their 
food. If detected, they were severely punished for having been 
so unskilful as not to get safely away with their booty. This 
custom, as well as the fortitude of the Spartan youth, is familiar 
to all through the story of the boy who, having stolen a young 
fox and concealed it beneath his tunic, allowed the animal to 
tear out his vitals, without betraying himself by the movement 
of a muscle. Still another usage, known as the Cryptia, al- 
lowed the young Spartan, at certain times, to hunt and kill the 
Helots, simply as practice to render him ready and expert in 
war. 

Estimate of the Lycurgean Institutions.— That the laws and 
regulations of the Lycurgean constitution were admirably 
adapted to the end in view — the rearing of a nation of skilful 
and resolute warriors— the long military supremacy of Sparta 
among the states of Greece abundantly attests. But when we 
consider the aim and object of the Spartan institutions, we 
must pronounce them low and unworthy. The true order of 
things was just reversed among the Lacedaemonians. Govern- 
ment exists for the individual: at Sparta the individual lived 
for the state. The body is intended to be the instrument of 



142 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

the mind : the Spartans reversed this, and attended to the edu- 
cation of the mind only so far as its development enhanced the 
effectiveness of the body as a weapon in warfare. 

Spartan history teaches how easy it is for a nation, like an 
individual, to misdirect its energies — to subordinate the higher 
to the lower. It illustrates, too, the fact that only those nations 
that labor to develop that which is best and highest in man 
make helpful contributions to the progress of the world. Sparta, 
in significant contrast to Athens, bequeathed nothing to pos- 
terity. 

The Messenian Wars. — The most important event in Spartan 
history between the age of Lycurgus and the commencement 
of the Persian War was the long contest with Messenia, known 
as the First and Second Messenian wars (743-668 B.C.). Some 
private wrongs and reprisals along the frontiers of the neigh- 
boring states caused the two nations to fly to arms. The 
Spartan warriors bound themselves by a solemn oath never to 
return home till the Messenians were crushed. The contest, 
marked by many acts of atrocious cruelty, went on with varying 
fortunes for two generations. 

It is told that the Spartans, falling into despair, sent to Delphi 
for advice. The oracle directed them to ask Athens for a 
counsellor. The Athenians did not wish to aid the Lacedae- 
monians, yet dared not oppose the oracle. So they sent Tyr- 
toaus, a poet - teacher, whom they hoped and thought would 
prove of but little use to Sparta as an adviser. Whatever 
truth there may be in this part of the story, it is indisputable 
that, during the Second Messenian War, Tyrtaeus, a poet from 
Attica, aroused the drooping spirits of the Spartans by the fire 
of his martial strains. Perhaps it would not be too much to 
say that Sparta owed her final victory to the inspiring songs of 
the martial poet. 

The conquered Messenians were reduced to serfdom, and 
their condition was made as degrading and bitter as that of 



EARLY HISTORY OF SPARTA. 1 43 

the Helots of Laconia. Some, choosing exile, pushed out into 
the Western Sea, and, settling in Sicily, gave name and impor- 
tance to the still existing city of Messina. 

Power of Sparta. — Sparta was now the most powerful state 
of Peloponnesus. " She rewarded her friends, humbled her 
rivals, and punished her enemies." Croesus, King of Lydia, 
sought an alliance with her in an approaching war with Persia, 
whose shadow was already falling upon the Hellenic states of 
Asia Minor. 

We now turn to narrate the history of republican Athens 
from the earliest times to the period where we drop the story 
of her rival Sparta. 



144 ANCIENT HISTORY. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

EARLY HISTORY OF ATHENS. 

Founding of Athens. — According to tradition, Athens was 
founded by the Egyptian Cecrops, 1550 B.C., and called after 
him Cecropia. Later it took the name Athenae, in honor of 
its protecting goddess, Minerva (Athene). A flat-topped rock, 
about one thousand feet in length and half as many in width, 
rises with abrupt cliffs, one hundred and fifty feet above the 
level of the plain of Attica. The security afforded by this 
eminence, afterwards called the Acropolis and covered with 
splendid temples, doubtless led to its selection as the site of 
the early city. Here a few buildings, perched upon the sum- 
mit of the rock and surrounded by a palisade, constituted the 
beginnings of the capital whose fame has spread over all the 
world. 

The Kings of Athens.— Upon long periods of Athens's early 
history there rest almost absolute silence and obscurity. It is 
certain, however, that during the Heroic Age it was ruled by 
kings, like all other Grecian states. The names of Theseus 
and Codrus are the most noted of the regal line. Of Codrus it 
is told that, when the Lacedaemonians invaded Attica, and he 
learned that an oracle had assured them of success if they 
spared the life of the Athenian king, he disguised himself, 
and, with a single companion, made an unprovoked attack upon 
some Spartan soldiers, who instantly slew him. Discovering 
that the King of Athens had fallen by a Lacedaemonian sword, 
the Spartans despaired of taking the city, and withdrew from 
the country. 



EARLY HISTORY OF ATHENS. I45 

The Archons (1050-620 B.C. ?). — Codrus was the last king of 
Athens. His successor, elected by the nobles, was given simply 
the name of Archon, or Ruler, as it was thought that no one 
was worthy of bearing the title of the divine Codrus. In later 
history occurs another illustration of the influence of this same 
sentiment, when the Christian Crusader Godfrey refused to be 
called King of Jerusalem, because he thought himself unworthy 
to wear the crown where his Master and King had suffered and 
died. 

At first there was but one Archon, elected for life ; but after 
about three hundred years the number was increased to nine. 
The government during all this time was in the hands of the 
nobles, the people having no part in the management of public 
affairs. There existed throughout the early history of Athens 
the same antagonism between these two orders that we shall 
hereafter find at Rome in the relations of the patricians and 
the plebeians. 

The people at length demanded additional rights and privi- 
leges, a voice in the government, and protection from the ex- 
actions and cruelties of the wealthy. 

The Laws of Draco. — To meet these demands, the nobles ap- 
pointed one of their own number, Draco, to prepare a code of 
laws. He reduced existing customs and regulations to a defi- 
nite and written constitution, assigning to the smallest offence 
the penalty of death. This cruel severity of the Draconian laws 
caused Demades to say of them that " they were written, not in 
ink, but in blood." In part, at least, this famous legislation was 
a reflection of the harshness of those early times. Some think, 
however, that they were made thus severe, in order to overawe 
and punish the people for having dared demand them of the 
nobles. Draco himself is said to have thought that all violation 
of law is sin against the gods, and that "the least offences de- 
serve death, and that he could devise no greater punishment 
for the worst." 



146 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

The Rebellion of Gylon (620 b.c). — Soon after the enactment 
of Draco's laws, which naturally served only to increase the dis- 
content of the people, Cylon, a rich and ambitious noble, taking 
advantage of the state of affairs, attempted to overthrow the 
government. He seized the citadel of the Acropolis, where he 
was closely besieged. Upon the rock stood a Temple of Mi- 
nerva. Finally, hard pressed, the companions of Cylon — he 
himself had escaped through the lines of his enemies — sought 
refuge within the shrine. The nobles, fearing lest the death of 
the rebels by starvation within the sacred enclosure should pol- 
lute the sanctuary, offered to spare their lives on condition of 
surrender. Fearing to trust themselves among their enemies 
without some protection, they fastened a string to the statue of 
Minerva, and, holding fast to this, descended from the citadel 
into the streets of Athens. As they came in front of the altars 
of the Furies, the line broke ; and the Archons, professing to be- 
lieve that this mischance indicated that the goddess refused to 
shield them longer, caused them to be set upon and massacred. 

It illustrates the superstition, or, as we should rather say, the 
deep religious feelings of those times, to note the effects of this 
act upon the course of following events. The friends of Cylon 
easily persuaded the people that the fierce anger of the aveng- 
ing Furies had been incurred by the slaughter of prisoners in 
violation of a sacred oath and before their very altars. Calami- 
ties that now befell the State confirmed the belief. Thus the 
people were inflamed still more against the government of the 
aristocracy. Thirlwall says that " Cylon's conspiracy and its 
issue exercised an influence on the history of Athens which 
has rendered it forever memorable as the event which led to 
the legislation of Solon." 

The Laws of Solon. — Solon, like the famous lawgiver of 
Sparta, prepared himself for giving laws to his countrymen by 
long and studious travel in foreign lands. Having the confi- 
dence of both parties, he was unanimously chosen to draw up 



EARLY HISTORY OF ATHENS. 147 

a new code of laws. He repealed many of the cruel laws of 
Draco; permitted the return of those driven into exile; gave 
wise relief to the debtor class, ordering those held in slavery 
for debt to be set free ; and caused the white stone posts, which 
indicated the fields were mortgaged, to be cleared from the 
lands. These measures caused contentment and prosperity to 
take the place, everywhere throughout Attica, of discontent and 
wretchedness. 

Changes in the Athenian Constitution. — The changes in the 
political constitution were equally wise and beneficent. Prop- 
erty, instead of birth, was made the basis of the new legislation. 
This completely changed the character of the government : it 
was no longer an exclusive oligarchy. The offices and emolu- 
ments of the State might now be attained by industry and 
energy. The Council of the Four Hundred, if not created, was 
at least greatly modified, by Solon. Its chief duty was to de- 
cide what matters might be discussed by the public assembly, 
and to execute the resolutions of that body. 

The Tribunal of the Areopagus. — Solon also enlarged the 
jurisdiction of the celebrated Tribunal of the Areopagus, a 
venerable council that from times out of memory had been 
held on Mars's Hill, near the Acropolis. Solon ordained that 
no one should be a member of it who had not held the office of 
Archon. The judges sat beneath the open sky, that they might 
not be contaminated, it is said, by the breath of the criminals 
brought before them. To this court was committed the care 
of morals and religion. It was this council that condemned 
Socrates to death ; and it was in the presence of this same 
venerable tribunal that, six hundred years afterwards, Paul 
stood when he made his famous defence of Christianity. 

The Public Assembly. — The public assembly, under the con- 
stitution of Solon, was made the most important of all the in- 



148 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

stitutions of the State. It was the fountain of all power. It 
appointed the Archons and elected the members of the Senate 
of Four Hundred. Contrary to the rule in Sparta, any citizen 
had the right not only of voting but of speaking on any question 
which the assembly had a right to discuss. Six thousand citi- 
zens were required to constitute a quorum, to transact business 
in cases of special importance. This popular assembly grew 
into vast importance in later times. By it were discussed and 
decided questions affecting the entire Hellenic world. 

These laws of Solon were inscribed on tablets of wood, and 
placed in the Agora, or public square, where they might be read 
by all. 

The Tyrant Pisistratus (560-527 b.c.).— Solon had the un- 
speakable misfortune of living to see his institutions over- 
thrown by an ambitious kinsman, his nephew Pisistratus. This 
man courted popular favor, and called himself the "friend 
of the people." One day, having inflicted many wounds upon 
himself, he drove his chariot hastily into the public square, and 
pretended that he had been thus set upon by the nobles, be- 
cause of his devotion to the people's cause. The people, 
moved with sympathy and indignation, voted him a guard of 
fifty men. Under cover of raising this company, Pisistratus 
gathered a much larger force, seized the Acropolis, and made 
himself master of Athens. 

The rule of the usurper was mild, and under him Athens en- 
joyed a period of great prosperity. He adorned the capital 
with temples and other splendid buildings. Just beyond the 
city walls, he laid out the Lyceum, a sort of public park, made 
inviting with groves, porches, and promenades, which became 
in after-years the famous resort of the philosophers and poets 
of Athens. He was a liberal patron of literature ; and his 
library — the first gathered at Athens — was generously thrown 
open to the public. He also caused the Homeric poems to be 
collected and edited. After many changes of fortune in his 



EARLY HISTORY OF ATHENS. 149 

contests with the nobles, he died thirty -two years after his 
seizure of the citadel. Solon himself said of him that he had 
no vice save ambition. 

Expulsion of the Tyrants from Athens (510 b.c). — The two 
sons of Pisistratus, Hippias and Hipparchus, succeeded to his 
power. At first they emulated the example of their father, and 
Athens flourished under their parental rule. But at length an 
unfortunate event gave an entirely different tone to the govern- 
ment. Hipparchus, having insulted a young noble, was assassi- 
nated. Hippias escaped harm, but " on a sudden, from a mild, 
affable, and beneficent friend, he was turned into a suspicious, 
stern, and cruel tyrant, who regarded all his subjects as secret 
enemies." His tyranny and cruelty finally led the people to 
rise against him ; and in the year preceding the expulsion of the 
kings from Rome, Hippias and all his house were driven into 
perpetual exile (510 B.C.). 

Ostracism. — After the expulsion of the tyrant Hippias and 
his family, several changes in the constitution, brought about 
through the influence of Cleisthenes, rendered it still more 
democratical than under Solon. Of these innovations that 
known as ostracism was the most characteristic and important. 
By means of this process any person who had excited the sus- 
picions or displeasure of the people could, without trial, be ban- 
ished from Athens for a period of from four to ten years. Six 
thousand votes cast against any person in a meeting of the pop- 
ular assembly was a decree of banishment. The name of the 
person whose banishmert was sought was written on a piece of 
pottery, or shell (in Greek ostrakon), hence the term ostracism. 

This institution was often abused ; yet it was a great defence 
against ambitious politicians whom the people had reason to 
think were plotting against the republic, though it would have 
been difficult or impossible to prove them guilty of any overt 
crime or misconduct. 



150 ANCIENT HISTORY. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE GRvECO-PERSIAN WARS. 
(500-479 B.C.) 

Expeditions of Darius against Greece.— In narrating the his- 
tory of the Persians, we have already told how Darius, after 
having subdued the revolt of his Ionian subjects in Asia 
Minor, turned his armaments against the Athenians, to punish 
them for the part they had taken in the capture and burning 
of Sardis. We have seen how ill-fated was his first expedition, 
which was led by his son-in-law Mardonius — the army being 
cut almost to pieces in Thrace by the fierce native tribes, and 
the fleet being shattered by heavy seas off the stormy promon- 
tory of Mount Athos. 

Undismayed by the disaster that had befallen the expedition 
of Mardonius, Darius issued orders for the raising and equip- 
ing of another and stronger armament. Meanwhile he sent 
heralds to the various Grecian states to demand earth and 
water, which elements among the Persians were symbols of 
submission. The weaker states gave the tokens required; but 
the Athenians and Spartans threw the envoys of the king into 
pits and wells, and bade them help themselves to earth and 
water. By the beginning of the year 490 B.C., another Persian 
army of 120,000 men had been mustered for the second attempt 
upon Greece. This armament was intrusted to the command 
of the experienced generals Datis and Artaphernes; but was 
under the guidance of the traitorous Hippias, who, after his 
banishment from Athens, had become a resident at the Persian 
court. A fleet of six hundred ships bore the army from the 
coasts of Asia Minor over the yEgean towards the Grecian 



THE GR^CO-PERSIAN WARS. 151 

shores. After receiving the submission of the most important 
of the Cyclades, and capturing and sacking the important city 
of Eretria upon the island of Eubcea, the Persians landed at 
Marathon, barely two days' journey from Athens. Here is a 
sheltered bay, which is edged by a crescent-shaped plain, back- 
ed by the rugged ranges of Parnes and Pentelicus. Upon this 
level ground the Persian generals drew up their army, flushed 
and confident with their recent successes. 

The Battle of Marathon (490 b.c). — The Athenians were 
nerved by the very magnitude of the danger to almost super- 
human energy. Slaves were transformed into soldiers by the 
promise of liberty. A fleet runner was despatched to Sparta 
for aid. But it so happened that the Spartans were in the 
midst of their religious games, during which it was thought ill- 
omened to undertake any enterprise. They promised aid, but 
moved only in time to reach Athens when all was over. The 
Platseans, firm and grateful friends of the Athenians on ac- 
count of some former service, no sooner received the latter's 
appeal for help than they responded to a man. 

The Athenians and their faithful allies, numbering about 
ten thousand in all, under the command of Miltiades, were 
drawn up in battle-array just where the hills of Pentelicus sink 
down into the plain of Marathon. The vast host of the Per- 
sians filled the level ground in their front. The fate of Greece 
and the future of Europe were in the keeping of Miltiades and 
his trusty warriors. Without waiting for the attack of the Per- 
sians, the Greeks charged and swept like a tempest from the 
mountain over the plain, pushing the Persians back towards the 
shore and throwing the entire host into complete disarray. 
The loss of the Persians in attempting to gain their ships was 
frightful, and the broken and dispirited fragments of the army 
were borne by the vessels back to the Asiatic shore (490 B.C.). 

Thus the cloud that had lowered so threateningly over Hel- 
las was for a time dissipated. The most imposing honors were 



152 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

accorded to the heroes who had achieved the glorious victory, 
and their names and deeds were transmitted to posterity in 
song and marble. The gods were believed to have interposed 
in behalf of Greece; and the grateful Athenians ordered their 
great sculptor Phidias to cut the block of marble which the 
confident Persians had brought with them to set up as a monu- 
ment of their anticipated victory, into a statue of Nemesis, the 
goddess who punishes the proud and insolent. The brazen 
arms and shields gathered from the battle-field were melted 
into a colossal statue of Minerva, which was placed upon the 
Acropolis, as the guardian of Athens. 

Results of the Battle of Marathon. — The battle of Marathon 
is reckoned as one of the " decisive battles of the world." It 
marks an epoch, not only in the life of Greece, but in that 
of Europe. The spell and prestige of the Persian name and 
arms were broken. It decided that no longer the despotism 
of the East, with its repression of all individual action, but 
the freedom of the West, with all its incentives to personal 
effort, should control the affairs and mould the ideas and institu- 
tions of the future. It gave the Hellenic peoples that position 
of authority and pre-eminence that had been so long enjoyed 
by the successive races of the East. It especially revealed the 
Athenians to themselves. The consciousness of resources and 
power became the inspiration of their future acts. They per- 
formed great deeds thereafter because they believed themselves 
able to perform them. 

Xerxes' Preparations to Invade Greece. — No sooner had the 
news of the disaster at Marathon been carried to Darius than 
he began to make gigantic preparations to avenge this second 
defeat and insult. It was in the midst of these plans for re- 
venge that, as we have already learned, death cut short his 
reign, and his son Xerxes came to the throne. Urged on by 
his nobles, as well as by exiled Greeks at his court, who sought 



THE GRjECOPERSIAN WARS. 1 53 

to gratify ambition or enjoy revenge in the humiliation and ruin 
of their native land, Xerxes pushed forward with the utmost 
energy the preparations begun by his father. For eight years 
all Asia resounded with the din of preparation. Levies were 
made upon all the provinces, from India to the Hellespont, 
that acknowledged the authority of the Great King. Vast 
contingents of vessels were furnished by the coast countries of 
the Mediterranean. Immense stores of provisions, the har- 
vests of many years, were gathered into great storehouses 
along the intended lines of march. 

While all these preparations were going on in Asia itself, 
Phoenician architects were employed in spanning the Helles- 
pont with a double bridge of boats, that should unite the 
two continents as with a royal highway. At the same time, 
the isthmus at Mount Athos, in rounding which promontory 
the admirals of Mardonius had lost their fleet, was cut by 
a canal. Three years were consumed in these gigantic works. 
With them completed, or far advanced, Xerxes set out from 
his capital, to join the countless host that from all quarters of 
the compass were gathering in Asia Minor. 

The Hellespontine Bridges Broken. — As the vast army was 
about to move from Sardis, intelligence came that the bridges 
across the Hellespont had been wrecked by a violent tempest. 
It is said that Xerxes in great wrath ordered the architects to 
be put to death, and the sea to be bound with fetters and 
scourged. The scourgers faithfully performed their duty, at 
the same time gratuitously cursing the traitorous and rebellious 
Hellespont with what Herodotus calls "non-Hellenic and blas- 
phemous terms." 

Other architects spanned the channel with two stronger and 
firmer bridges. Each roadway rested upon a row of from three 
to four hundred vessels, all securely anchored like modern 
pontoons. The bridges were each about one mile in length, 
and furnished with high parapets, that the horses and cattle 
might not be rendered uneasy at sight of the water. 

8 



154 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Passage of the Hellespont. — With the first indications of the 
opening spring of 480 B.C., just ten years after the defeat at 
Marathon, the vast Persian army was astir and concentrating 
from all points upon the Hellespont. The passage of this 
strait, as pictured to us in the inimitable narration of Herodotus, 
is one of the most dramatic of all the spectacles afforded by 
history. Before the passage commenced, the bridges were 
strewn with the sacred myrtle and perfumed with incense from 
golden censers, while the sea was placated with libations 
poured by the king himself. As the east reddened with the 
approach of the sun, prayers were offered, and the moment the 
rays of Helios touched the bridges the passage began. To 
avoid accidents and delays, the trains of baggage wagons and 
the beasts of burden crossed by one causeway, leaving the 
other free for the march of the army. The first of the host to 
cross were the sacred guard of the Great King, the Ten Thou- 
sand Immortals, all crowned with garlands as in festival proces- 
sion. Preceding the king, moved slowly the gorgeous Chariot 
of the Sun, drawn by eight milk-white steeds. Herodotus af- 
firms that for seven days and seven nights the bridges groaned 
beneath the living tide that Asia was pouring into Europe. 

The Review and Census. — Upon an extended plain called 
Doriscus, on the Grecian shore, Xerxes drew up his vast army 
for review and census. It was the largest armament that the 
world had yet gathered for any enterprise. To Herodotus it 
seemed that all Asia and Africa were there seeking the ruin of 
Greece. Forty-six different nations marched beneath the en- 
sign of the Persian king. The costumes and equipments of the 
different contingents were as varied as the countries whence 
they came. There was every variety of dress, from the light 
cotton tunic of the native of India to the leopard-skin in which 
the Ethiopian wrapped his body. Some were clad in bronze 
armor; others offered their naked bodies to the blows of the 
enemy. The weapons borne varied from the well -tempered 



THE GR^ECO-PERSIAN WARS. 155 

blade of Damascus to the fire-hardened stave of the Libyan. 
Some of the nomadic horsemen were armed simply with the 
lasso. 

The countless host could be numbered in no usual way. Ten 
thousand men were crowded in as close a body as possible 
and a low wall raised about them. Then these passed out of 
the enclosure, which was again packed with soldiers, and when 
no more could find room, it was calculated that 10,000 were 
within. One hundred and seventy times was the enclosure 
thus filled and emptied. According to this rude enumeration, 
the land force of Xerxes amounted to 1,700,000 men. The 
naval force brought the number up to the amazing total of 
2,317,000. Herodotus adds to this about an equal number of 
slaves and attendants, making the entire host number between 
five and six million persons. It is thought by some that these 
figures are exaggerated, and that the actual number of the Per- 
sian army could have been hardly more than half that given 
by the historian. 

Provisioning the Persian Army. — From the plain of Doriscus 
the Persian army moved on towards the Pass of Thermopylae. 
The cities along the route had been ordered to prepare repasts 
tor the army as it advanced, and to furnish special delicacies 
for the royal table. The people, through policy or fear, made 
extraordinary efforts to entertain in a becoming manner their 
self-imposed guest and to feed his soldiers. Herodotus af- 
firms, and there seems no reason to doubt his statement, that 
some of the towns were driven to distraction, and others to the 
very verge of ruin. The people, however, notwithstanding their 
perplexity and distress, found occasion to thank the gods be- 
cause Xerxes, according to the Persian custom,, required but 
one meal a day. " Had the monarch required breakfast as 
well as dinner," says Herodotus, "the citizens must have been 
reduced to the alternative either of exile or of utter destitu- 
tion." 



156 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Battle of Thermopylae (480 b.c.).— Leading from Thessaly into 
Central Greece is a narrow pass, pressed on one side by the 
sea and on the other by rugged mountain ridges. At the foot 
of the cliffs break forth several hot springs, whence the name of 
the pass, Thermopylae, or " Hot Gates." 

At this point was offered the first resistance to the progress 
of the Persian army. Leonidas, king of Sparta, with three hun- 
dred Lacedaemonian soldiers and six thousand allies from dif- 
ferent states of Greece, held the pass. As happened at the 
time of the battle of Marathon, the celebration of the sacred 
games was going on, and this mere handful of men were left 
unsupported to hold in check the army of Xerxes. It was not 
indifference or lack of energy which led the Grecian states in 
this crisis to act thus, but their religious scruples. Their ac- 
tion is likened by Grote to that of the Jews, who permitted the 
Roman works to be pushed forward against their city during 
the Sabbath without any attempt at resistance. But if their 
religious scruples brought upon the Greeks at Thermopylae an 
almost irretrievable disaster, we shall see the same sentiment 
becoming the salvation of their country at Salamis. 

By a special interposition of the gods, as it seemed to the 
pious Greeks, a furious tempest drove the Persian fleet upon 
the shore and dashed to pieces over four hundred ships. This 
prevented Xerxes from landing a force farther down the coast 
in the rear of Leonidas. The Spartans could now be driven 
from their advantageous position only by an attack in front. 
For two days the Persians tried to storm the pass. The Asi- 
atics were driven to the attack by their officers armed with 
lashes. But every attempt to force the way was repulsed ; even 
the Ten Thousand Immortals were hurled back from the Spar- 
tan front like waves from a cliff. 

An act of treachery on the part of a native Greek rendered 
unavailing all the bravery of the keepers of the pass. A by- 
way leading over the mountains to the rear of the Spartans 
was revealed to Xerxes. The startling intelligence was brought 



THE GRiECO-PERSIAN WARS. 1 57 

to Leonidas that the Persians were descending the mountain 
path in his rear. He saw instantly that all was lost. The 
allies were permitted to seek safety in flight while opportunity 
remained. But to him and his Spartan companions there 
could be no thought of retreat. Death in the pass, the defence 
of which had been, intrusted to them, was all that Spartan 
honor and Spartan law now left them. The next day, sur- 
rounded by the Persian host, they fought with desperate valor; 
but, being overwhelmed at last by mere numbers, they were 
slain to the last man. With them also perished nine hundred 
Thespians who had chosen death with their companions. Over 
the bodies of the Spartan soldiers a monument was afterwards 
erected with this inscription : " Stranger, tell the Lacedaemo- 
nians that we lie here in obedience to their orders." 

The Burning of Athens. — Athens now lay open to the invad- 
ers. The inhabitants of Peloponnesus, thinking only of their 
own safety, commenced throwing up defences across the narrow 
isthmus of Corinth, working day and night under the impulse 
of an almost insane fear. Athens was thus left outside to care 
for herself. 

Counsels were divided. The Delphian oracle had obscurely 
declared, "When everything else in the land of Cecrops shall 
be taken, Zeus grants to Athene that the wooden walls alone 
shall remain unconquered, to defend you and your children." 
The oracle was believed to be, as was declared, "firm as ada- 
mant." But there were various opinions as to what was meant 
by the "wooden walls." Some thought the Pythian priestess 
directed the Athenians to seek refuge in the forest on the 
mountains ; others believed the oracle meant the wooden pali- 
sade about the Acropolis ; but Themistocles (who it is thought 
may have himself prompted the oracle) contended that the ships 
were plainly indicated. The last interpretation was acted upon. 
All the soldiers of Attica were crowded upon the fleet at Sala- 
mis. The aged men, with the women and children, were car- 



158 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

ried out of the country to different places of safety. All the 
towns of Attica and the capital were thus deserted to the con- 
querors. 

A few days afterwards the Persians entered upon the de- 
serted plain, which they rendered more desolate by ravaging 
the fields and burning the empty towns. Athens shared the 
common fate, and her splendid temples sank in flames. Sardis 
was avenged. The joy in distant Susa was unbounded. 

The Naval Battle of Salamis (480 b. a). —Just off the coast of 
Attica, separated from the mainland by a narrow passage of 
water, lies the island of Salamis. Here lay the Greek fleet. 
The persuasive eloquence of Themistocles alone brought the 
Greeks to the determination to face here the Persian squadrons. 
To hasten on the Persian attack before dissensions should di- 
vide the Greek forces, Themistocles resorted to the following 
stratagem. He sent a messenger to Xerxes representing that 
he himself was ready to espouse the Persian cause, and advised 
an immediate attack upon the Athenian fleet, which he repre- 
sented as being in no condition to make any formidable re- 
sistance. Xerxes was deceived. He ordered an immediate 
attack. From a lofty throne upon the shore he himself over- 
looked the scene and watched the result. The Persian fleet 
was broken to pieces and two hundred of the ships destroyed. 

The blow was decisive. Xerxes lost faith in his undertaking 
and in his allies. He feared that treachery might burn or 
break the Hellespontine bridges, and thus endanger his own 
safety. He instantly despatched a hundred ships to protect 
them ; and then, leaving Mardonius with 300,000 men to re- 
trieve the disaster of Salamis, and effect, as he promised to do, 
the conquest of the rest of Greece, the monarch set out on his 
ignominious retreat to Asia. 

The Battles of Plataea and Mycale (479 b.c). — The next year 
the Persian fleet and army thus left behind in Europe were en- 



THE GRiECO-PERSIAN WARS. 1 59 

tirely destroyed both on the same day— the army at Plataea, near 
Thebes ; and the fleet, including the Asiatic land forces, at 
Mycale/on the Ionian coast. Salamis, Plataea, and Mycale 
were the successive blows that shattered into fragments the 
most splendid armaments ever commanded by Asiatic despot. 

Memorials and Trophies of the War.— The glorious issue of 
the war caused a general burst of joy and exultation throughout 
all Greece. Poets and artists and orators all vied with one 
another in commemorating the deeds of the heroes whose valor 
had warded off the impending danger. 

Nor did the pious Grecians think that the marvellous de- 
liverance had been effected without the intervention of the 
gods in their behalf. To the temple at Delphi was grate- 
fully consecrated a tithe of the immense spoils in gold and 
silver from the field of Platan ; and within the sanctuary of 
Minerva, upon the Acropolis at Athens, were placed the 
broken cables of the Hellespontine bridges, at once a proud 
trophy of victory and a signal illustration of the divine punish- 
ment that had befallen the audacious and impious attempt to 
lay a yoke upon the sacred waters of the Hellespont. 



l6o ANCIENT HISTORY. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

PERIOD OF ATHENIAN SUPREMACY. 
(479-431 B.C.) 

Loyalty of Athens to the Grecian Cause. — Athens had braved 
everything for the common cause of Hellas. The patriotism 
of her citizens had never wavered. When Mardonius sought 
with bribes to detach them from the Grecian league, they re- 
plied to his messenger that " no conceivable temptation, either 
of money or territory, should induce them to desert the ties of 
brotherhood, common language, or religion." Their lofty pa- 
triotism and unswerving loyalty to the general interests of 
Greece — in striking contrast to the narrow selfishness of the 
Spartans — were now rewarded. Athens was accorded the 
place of honor and pre-eminence among the Grecian states. 
The loss and suffering entailed by the destruction of her dwell- 
ings and temples were repaired and forgotten during the period 
of prosperity upon which she now entered. Her maritime power, 
and her reputation as a centre of wealth and refinement and 
the home of art and literature, were secured by the address and 
genius of a succession of statesmen, artists, and writers such as 
perhaps no other city in ancient or modern times ever pro- 
duced. The important public events that fill the period inter- 
vening between the battle of Platasa and the breaking-out of 
the Peloponnesian War (479-431 b.c.) will be found, as we now 
proceed to narrate them in the very briefest way, to connect 
themselves especially with four names of the widest renown — 
Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon, and Pericles. 

Rebuilding the Walls of Athens.— After the Persians had 



PERIOD OF ATHENIAN SUPREMACY. l6l 

been expelled from Greece, the first care of the Athenians was 
the rebuilding of their homes. Their next task was the res- 
toration of the city walls. The exalted hopes for the future 
which had been raised by the almost incredible achievements 
and endurance of the past few months led the Athenians to 
draw a vast circuit of seven miles about the Acropolis as the 
line of the new ramparts. The rival states of Peloponnesus 
watched the proceedings of the Athenians with the most jealous 
interest. While they could not but admire Athens, they feared 
her. Sparta sent an embassy to dissuade the citizens from re- 
building the walls, hypocritically assigning as the cause of her 
interest in the matter her solicitude lest in case of another 
Persian invasion the city, if captured, might become a shelter 
and defence to the enemy. 

Themistocles as an Envoy. — The crafty Themistocles, the 
Ulysses of Athens, and the most popular leader of this time, 
had a talent for just such diplomacy as the case seemed to de- 
mand j for the Athenians were not strong enough to insist by 
force of arms upon their right to manage their own affairs. 
Themistocles caused the Spartan envoys to be sent home with 
the reply that Athens would send commissioners to Sparta to 
consider the matter with them there. Then, as one of the en- 
voys, he himself set out for Sparta, having previously arranged 
that the other members of the embassy should not leave Athens 
until the walls were sufficiently advanced to defy assault. 
With astonishing unanimity and energy, the entire population 
of Athens, rich and poor, men, women, and children, set to work 
upon the walls. Material was torn from temples and tombs 
and built into the defences. 

While this was going on at Athens, Themistocles was at 
Sparta, with amazing address wondering with the Lacedaemo- 
nians what so delayed his colleagues. From day to day the busi- 
ness upon which he had come was postponed, to give time for 
the arrival of the tardy envoys. At length rumors came to 

8* 



162 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Sparta of the state of affairs at Athens. Themistocles assured 
the people that these were mere idle reports. Fresh rumors 
came. Then he advised them to send messengers of their own 
to Athens to get the truth of the matter. They did so. But 
Themistocles had already despatched a messenger to the 
Athenians informing them that the Spartan envoys were on 
the way, and ordering their detention in Athens. By all these 
stratagems sufficient time was gained to raise the walls to 
such a height that the Athenians could defy interference. 
Then Themistocles boldly administered some "wholesome ad- 
vice to the Spartans. He told them that when they and their 
allies sent ambassadors again to Athens, to deal with the Athe- 
nians as with reasonable men, who could discern what belonged 
to their own interest, and what to the general interest of Greece." 
These circumstances attendant upon the refortifying of the 
Athenian capital we have narrated at some length, because of 
the light they throw upon the succeeding history of Athens. 
They exhibit the tremendous energy with which the memory 
of the recent great events of the Persian War inspired the Athe- 
nians. As Grote observes, both arm and mind were strung to 
the very highest pitch. It was this tension, calling forth the very 
best in every man, that carried forward events at Athens with 
such almost preternatural energy during the two or three gen- 
erations immediately following that great struggle. This con- 
tention respecting the walls of Athens also affords us a glimpse 
of the rising jealousy between Sparta and Athens, which at 
last, intensified by their different political tendencies, issued in 
that long and calamitous struggle between these two rival states 
and their allies known as the Peloponnesian War. 

Naval Policy of the Athenians.— Eminent as was the service 
which Themistocles had rendered to his native city in the con- 
duct of the Spartan negotiations, he now conferred a still greater 
benefit by the exercise of his prudence and genius in the shap- 
ing of the naval policy of the ambitious Athenians. This far- 



PERIOD OF ATHENIAN SUPREMACY. 1 63 

sighted statesman saw clearly that Athens's supremacy among 
the Grecian states must be secured and maintained by her 
mastery of the sea. He had unbounded visions of the mari- 
time power and glory that might come to her through her fleet, 
those "wooden walls" to which at this moment she owed her 
very existence ; and he succeeded in inspiring his countrymen 
with his own sanguine hopes and enthusiasm. In the prose- 
cution of his views, he persuaded the Athenians to enlarge the 
harbor of Piraeus, the most spacious of the three ports of Athens, 
and to surround the place with immense walls, far exceeding, 
both in compass and strength, those of the capital. He also 
led his countrymen to the resolution of adding each year 
twenty well-equipped triremes to their navy. 

This policy, initiated by Themistocles, was zealously pursued 
by the statesmen that after him successively assumed the lead 
in Athenian affairs. Under the influence of Pericles, the 
Athenians built the famous Long Walls, by means of which 
Piraeus and Athens were united, and the capital and its port 
thus converted into a vast fortified district.* With her com- 
munication with the sea thus secured, and with a powerful 
navy at her command, Athens could bid defiance to her foes 
on land and on sea. 

Character of Themistocles. — Themistocles well deserved the 
honor of being called, as he was, the founder of the New Ath- 
ens. But although a great and far-seeing statesman, to whose 
commanding ability in war and in peace Athens owed almost 
everything, still those imperfections of character which we can- 

* The Long Walls were each between four and five miles in length, and 
were sixty feet in height. They were defended by numerous towers, which, 
when Athens became crowded, were used as shops and private dwellings. 
The walls were employed as highways, the top being wide enough to allow 
two chariots to pass conveniently. The foundation of the northern wall 
now forms the road-bed of the modern railroad running from Piraeus to 
Athens. 



164 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

not have failed to notice at last brought him into disgrace. He 
used unscrupulously the power and position which his abilities 
and services secured him. He accepted bribes and sold his 
influence, thereby acquiring an enormous property. Finally he 
was ostracized and went into exile (471 B.C.). After long 
wanderings, he became a resident at the court of the Persian 
king. By his consummate address, and profuse promises to aid 
the Persians in their designs against Greece, he attained at 
court precedence of the native nobles. Artaxerxes, in ac- 
cordance with Persian usage, provided for the courtier exile 
by assigning to three cities the care of providing for his table : 
one furnished bread, a second meat, and a third wines. It is 
told that one day, as he sat down to his richly loaded board, he 
exclaimed, " How much we should have lost, my children, if we 
had not been ruined !" 

Aristides the Just. — The most illustrious contemporary and 
rival of Themistocles was Aristides the Just. Less great in 
mind than Themistocles, he was immeasurably his superior 
in character. Before the time of which we are treating, he 
had already rendered many and eminent services to his na- 
tive state. He was one of the ten Athenian generals that led 
the Grecian forces at Marathon. Not long after that battle, 
his rival, Themistocles, by unworthy intrigue, secured against 
him a decree of banishment. It is related that while the vote 
that ostracized him was being taken in the popular assembly, 
an illiterate peasant, who was a stranger to Aristides, ap- 
proached and asked him to write the name of Aristides upon 
his tablet. As he placed the name desired upon the shell, the 
statesman asked the man what wrong Aristides had ever done 
him. " None," responded the voter; " I do not even know him ; 
but I am tired of hearing him called the Just." 

With a spirit just the opposite of that evinced by Camillus, 
who, when banished by his countrymen, invoked the gods to 
send such calamities upon them that they would speedily pray 



PERIOD OF ATHENIAN SUPREMACY. 1 65 

for his return, the patriot Aristides went into exile praying 
the gods that nothing might befall his native city which should 
cause those that had procured his banishment to mourn his ab- 
sence. Nevertheless, such an event soon did occur. Only six 
years had passed when the threatening clanger of the invasion 
by Xerxes led to his recall by the Athenians, to aid Themisto- 
cles in the defence of the state. He fought at Salamis and 
Plataea, and, after the retreat of the Persians, became at Athens 
the rival of Themistocles in popular favor and esteem. It was 
the universal confidence inspired by his uprightness of charac- 
ter that enabled him to secure for his native city that suprem- 
acy in the foreign affairs of Hellas which had been hitherto 
accorded to Sparta alone. How this came about will appear 
in the following paragraphs. 

The Confederacy of Delos. — To defend themselves more effect- 
ively against the Persians — who for two centuries after the 
disastrous expedition of Xerxes never ceased, by intrigue and 
open force, to vex the Grecian communities — the Ionian states 
of Asia Minor, the islands of the ^Egean, and some of the 
states in Greece proper, mostly north of the Isthmus, formed 
themselves into what is known as the Confederacy of Delos. 
Sparta had hitherto been accorded the place of pre-eminence 
and authority in all such alliances of the Hellenic cities. She 
had come, indeed, to regard herself as the natural guardian 
and leader of Greece. But at this time the unbearable arro- 
gance of the Spartan king Pausanias, and also his proven 
treacherous overtures to Xerxes, in which, in return for mag- 
nificent bribes — the daughter of Xerxes as a bride and an im- 
mense fortune in gold — he was to surrender all Greece into the 
hands of the Persians, led the states which had entered into 
the alliance to look to Athens to assume the position of lead- 
ership in the new confederacy. 

The lofty character of Aristides, who now commanded the 
Athenian army, and his great reputation for fairness and incor- 



1 66 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

ruptible integrity, also contributed to the same result. He 
was chosen the first president of the league (477 B.C.). The 
sacred isle of Delos was made the repository of the common 
funds. What proportion of the annual sums needed for carry- 
ing out the purposes of the confederacy should be contributed 
by the different states was left entirely to the decision of Aris- 
tides, such was the confidence in his equity; and none of the 
members of the alliance ever had cause of complaint. 

Thus did Sparta, through the treachery of her king Pausa- 
nias, lose, and Athens, through the justness of her citizen Aris- 
tides, gain, the place of precedence among the Ionian states. 
The Dorian states of Peloponnesus, in the main, still looked to 
Sparta as their leader and adviser. All Greece was thus divid- 
ed into two great leagues, under the rival leadership of Sparta 
and Athens. 

The Leadership of Cimon. — Having noticed some of the im- 
portant public services of Themistocles and Aristides during 
the first years of what we have called the Period of Athenian 
Supremacy, we must now narrate some events in the career of 
Cimon, the ablest and most distinguished of the generals who 
commanded the armies of the Athenians and their allies during 
this same period. 

Cimon, the son of Miltiades, was one of those whose spirits 
had been fired by the exciting events attendant upon the Per- 
sian invasion. He had called attention to himself and ac- 
quired a certain reputation, at the time of the abandonment of 
Athens, by being the first to hang up his bridle in the sanctu- 
ary of the Acropolis, thus expressing his resolution to place all 
his confidence in the fleet, as Themistocles advised. 

After the expulsion of the Persians from Greece, he became 
one of the most successful of the Grecian generals to whom 
was intrusted the command of the armaments designed to 
wrest from the hands of the enemy the islands of the JEgesm 
and the Hellenic cities of the Asiatic coast. The rich spoils 



PERIOD OF ATHENIAN SUPREMACY. 1 67 

of his many victories over the Persians enabled him to fill the 
treasury of Athens, and also to build up an ample fortune for 
himself. His private means he dispensed with a lavish hand 
in benefactions to the poor, in the erection of magnificent pub- 
lic buildings, and in the beautifying of the public walks and 
parks of Athens. The Academy, the favorite resort of the 
Athenians, owed much of its beauty to his munificence. He 
also encouraged the people to push forward the work upon the 
Long Walls by laying, at his own cost and in a superior man- 
ner, a considerable section of the foundations. 

One of the most interesting ceremonies in which he took a 
leading part was the removal of what was declared to be the 
body of the national hero Theseus from the island of Scyros, 
where the exiled king is fabled to have died, to a place of en- 
tombment at Athens. Over the sacred relics was erected the 
beautiful Temple of Theseus, which at the present day, after 
the lapse of more than two thousand years, still marks the 
spot, and exhibits to us the best-preserved specimen of all the 
structures of the ancient Grecians. 

His Ostracism. — The popularity of Cimon at last declined, 
and he suffered ostracism, as had Aristides and Themistocles 
before him. The inconstant Athenians seemed to have inflict- 
ed the sentence of exile upon almost all of their greatest lead- 
ers earlier or later in their careers. Cimon's loss of public fa- 
vor came about in this manner. In the year 464 B.C., a terrible 
earthquake destroyed a large portion of Sparta, and buried a 
vast number of the inhabitants beneath the ruins of their city. 
In the panic of the appalling disaster, the Spartans were led 
to believe that the evil had befallen them as a punishment for 
their recent violation of the Temple of Neptune, from which 
some Helots who had fled to the sanctuary for refuge had been 
torn. The Helots, on their part, were quick to interpret the 
event as an intervention of the gods in their behalf, and as an 
unmistakable signal for their uprising. Everywhere they flew 



l68 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

to arms, and, being joined by some of the Provincials, furious- 
ly attacked their masters. The Spartans, after maintaining the 
bitter struggle for several years, finding themselves unable to 
reduce their former slaves to submission, were forced to ask 
aid of the other Grecian states. Cimon, who had always enter- 
tained the most friendly feelings for the Lacedaemonians, per- 
suaded the Athenians to put aside all sentiments of enmity or 
jealousy, and to extend succor to their kinsmen in this desper- 
ate posture of their affairs. The Athenian forces fought for 
some time side by side with the Lacedaemonians. But the 
Spartans were distrustful of the sincerity of their allies, and 
this feeling gradually grew into positive fear lest the Athenians 
should take advantage of their position in the country and pass 
over to the side of the Helots. Acting under this apprehen- 
sion, which was probably entirely groundless, they dismissed 
the Athenian forces. The discourtesy of the act aroused the 
most bitter resentment at Athens. The party that had always 
opposed the resolution of aiding their rivals as weakly senti- 
mental and impolitic, took advantage of the exasperated feel- 
ings of the people to secure the exercise of the ostracism 
against Cimon, as the chief espouser of the undertaking; and 
he was sent into an exile of ten years. Pericles, the most dis- 
tinguished of Athenian statesmen, now became the popular 
idol and leader. 

Pericles and the Periclean Age (469-429 b.c). — This was the 
most brilliant period of Athenian history. It embraced little 
more than the life of a single generation, yet its influence upon 
the civilization of the world can hardly be overestimated. 
During this short period Athens gave birth to more great men 
— poets, artists, statesmen, and philosophers — than all the world 
has ever produced in any other period of equal length. 

Among the great minds of this age, Pericles stood conspicu- 
ous. Such was the impression left by his commanding states- 
manship, his persuasive eloquence, and his almost universal 



PERIOD OF ATHENIAN SUPREMACY. j$g 

genius upon the period in which he lived that it is called after 
him the Periclean Age. Under his able leadership, Athens 
speedily rose to a place of absolute supremacy among all her 
sister Ionian states. These, from the position of peers in an 
equal alliance, became in reality the tributaries of Athens. 
What had been simply a voluntary confederation of sovereign 
states became an empire, with Athens as the imperial city. 
Literature, art, and philosophy were carried to the highest per- 
fection possible to human genius; and the capital was made 
brilliant with temples and various splendid architectural mon- 
uments. It was during this period that the Acropolis was 
adorned with the Parthenon and other edifices, conceived and 
executed by the genius of Phidias and his companion artists. 

Never before had any people enjoyed such perfect liberty as 
did the Athenians during this era ; and never before, probably, 
were any people, by so intimate a knowledge of political affairs, 
so well able to direct the public policies of their state. The 
government, in so far as it was related to the Athenians them- 
selves, was at this time almost a pure democracy. Every mat- 
ter that concerned the empire was discussed and determined 
upon in the popular assembly. Pericles's power was, indeed, 
almost supreme; but it was only the influence and authority 
which talent and character justly confer. 



170 ANCIENT HISTORY. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR : -SPARTAN AND THEBAN SUPREMACY. 
(43I-362 B.C.) 

Cause and Beginning of the War. — During the closing years 
of the life of Pericles, the growing jealousy between Athens 
and Sparta broke out in the long struggle known as the 
Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.). Pericles had foreseen the 
coming storm : " I descry war," said he, " lowering from Pelo- 
ponnesus." He saw clearly that sooner or later the oppos- 
ing principles and jealousies of the two rival states must 
bring them into collision. His whole policy looked towards 
the preparation of his country for the inevitable struggle. 

The immediate occasion of the war was Athens's interfer- 
ence in a quarrel between Corinth and the island of Corcyra. 
Sparta espoused the cause of the former, who appealed to her 
as leader of the Peloponnesian states. The Dorian states of 
Peloponnesus, with many of the countries north of the Isthmus, 
ranged themselves on the side of aristocratical Sparta ; while 
the Ionian states in Greece, on the ^Egean islands, and along 
the shores of Thrace and Asia Minor, generally allied them- 
selves with the cause of republican Athens. The struggle was 
now begun in which both parties were destined to grind each 
other to pieces, and leave all Hellas an easy prey to the Mace- 
donian conqueror. 

A Peloponnesian army was soon overrunning the countries 
north of the Isthmus. Pericles persuaded the people of Attica 
to abandon their towns and villas and gather within the walls 
of the capital. He did not deem it prudent to risk a battle 
with the Spartans in the open field. From the walls of Athens 



THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR. 171 

the people could see the flames of their burning towns as the 
enemy ravaged the plains of Attica up to the very gates of the 
city. It required all the persuasion of Pericles to restrain 
them from issuing in a body from behind the ramparts and 
rushing to the defence of their homes. 

Pestilence at Athens. — The second year the Lacedaemonians 
again ravaged the fields about Athens, and drove the Athe- 
nians almost to frenzy with the sight of the flame and smoke 
of such property and villas as had escaped the destruction of 
the previous year. To increase their misery, a pestilence broke 
out within the crowded city, and added its horrors to the already 
unbearable calamities of war. No pen could picture the de- 
spair and gloom that settled over the city. Pericles, who had 
been the very soul and life of the capital through these dark 
clays, fell a victim to the plague. In dying, he said he con- 
sidered his greatest praise to be that " he had never caused an 
Athenian to put on mourning." 

Progress of the War. — The ruinous effects of the war were 
felt throughout the entire Hellenic world ; for the colonies as 
well as the states of the mother -land were involved in the 
calamitous quarrel. So nearly matched in strength and re- 
sources were the two rivals with their subject allies, and so 
deep were the animosities aroused, that the only possible end 
seemed to be in the mutual exhaustion of the contending states. 
Almost every year the Lacedaemonians invaded and ravaged 
the country north of the Isthmus : the Athenians retaliated by 
desolating with their fleet the coasts of Peloponnesus. 

The Mityleneans.— On both sides the war was waged with 
the utmost vindictiveness and cruelty. A single ray of light 
comes from Athens. The city of Mitylene, on the island of 
Lesbos, a subject ally of the Athenians, had revolted. With 
the rebellion suppressed, the fate of the Mityleneans was in the 



172 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

hands of the Athenian assembly. Cleon, a popular but un- 
principled demagogue, proposed that all the adult citizens of the 
place, six thousand in number, should be slain, and the women 
and children sold as slaves. This infamous decree was passed, 
and a galley despatched bearing the sentence for execution to 
the Athenian general at Mitylene. 

By the next morning, however, the Athenians had repented 
of their hasty and cruel resolution. A second meeting of the 
assembly was hurriedly called ; the barbarous vote was re- 
pealed ; and a swift trireme, bearing the reprieve, set out in 
anxious haste to overtake the former galley, which had twenty- 
four hours the start. The oarsmen of the trireme, with every 
nerve strung to the highest tension by the nature of their er- 
rand as well as by the promise of large rewards dependent 
upon the success of their mission, urged the vessel across the 
JEgean with almost preternatural energy. The trireme reached 
the island just in time to save the Mityleneans from a cruel 
fate and the Athenians from a lasting disgrace. 

The Athenians, it must be confessed, knew but little of hu- 
manity, for the world had not yet learned to regard highly the 
gentler virtues ; yet this incident causes the disposition of the 
Athenians to appear mild and humane when compared with 
the unrelenting cruelty of the Spartans, as exhibited in their 
dealings with the Plataeans and the Helots of Laconia. The 
former, upon the capture of their city, they massacred to a man ; 
two thousand of the latter they secretly and treacherously as- 
sassinated, simply because they feared their increasing number 
and power. 

Close of the Peloponnesian War.— An expedition against the 
Dorian city of Syracuse, in Sicily, was a fatal step on the part 
of Athens. It was planned by Alcibiades, a brave and brilliant 
general, but a reckless and unsafe counsellor. The enterprise 
proved terribly disastrous, and the resources of Athens were 
wrecked. Her subject allies now deserted her. The Persians, 



PERIOD OF SPARTAN SUPREMACY. 1 73 

ever ready to aid the Greeks in destroying one another, lent 
aid to the Spartans. Finally, at ^gos Potamos (goat's river), 
in Asia Minor, the Athenian navy was captured by the Spartan 
fleet under Lysander. The following year, 404 B.C., Athens 
was forced to surrender; and the Long Walls, the building 
of which Sparta had regarded with undisguised jealousy, were 
levelled to the ground. Sparta's authority was now supreme. 
She had neither peer nor rival among the Grecian states. 

Thus after a war of twenty -seven years — a struggle ever 
memorable on account of its calamitous results — were all the 
early hopes and promises of freedom-loving Athens broken and 
crushed. The loss to the world, and to the cause of civiliza- 
tion, we cannot estimate. 

Period of Spartan and Theban Supremacy. 

Spartan Supremacy. — For just one generation following the 
Peloponnesian War (404-371 B.C.), Sparta held the leadership 
of the Grecian states. Aristocratical governments, with insti- 
tutions similar to the Spartan, were established in the different 
cities of the peninsula. At Athens, the democratical constitu- 
tion of Solon, under which the Athenians had attained their 
greatness, was abolished, and an oppressive oligarchy estab- 
lished in its stead. The Thirty Tyrants, however, who adminis- 
tered this government were, after eight months' infamous rule, 
driven from the city, and the institutions and laws of Solon 
were re-established. 

It was during this period that Socrates, the greatest moralist 
and teacher of antiquity, was condemned to death, because his 
teachings were thought contrary to the religion of the Athe- 
nians. To this era also belongs the famous expedition of the 
Ten Thousand Greeks. 

Expedition of the Ten Thousand. — The aid given by the Per- 
sians to Sparta in the Peloponnesian War was not altogether 
unselfish. Cyrus, satrap of the Persian provinces of Asia Minor, 



174 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

thinking that his brother Artaxerxes held the throne unjustly, 
was secretly planning to seize it for himself. In the latter part 
of the Peloponnesian War, when he saw the tide of events 
turning against Athens, he lent aid to the Spartans; proposing 
thus to place them under obligation to him, so that he could 
ask their aid in his contemplated enterprise. Now the time 
had come for the return of the favor. To the army of one 
hundred thousand barbarians which Cyrus had raised in Asia, 
the Spartans added about eleven thousand Greek soldiers. 

With this force Cyrus set out from Sardis, in the spring of 
401 B.C. He marched without opposition across Asia Minor 
and Mesopotamia to Babylonia, into the very heart of the Per- 
sian Empire. Here, at Cunaxa, he was confronted by Artax- 
erxes with a force of more than half a million of men. The 
barbarian allies of Cyrus were scattered at the first onset of the 
enemy; but the Greeks stood like a rampart of rock. Cyrus, 
however, was slain; and the other Greek generals, having been 
persuaded to enter into a council, were treacherously murdered 
by the Persians. 

The Greeks, in a hurried night meeting, chose new generals 
to lead them back to their homes. One of these was Xeno- 
phon, the famous historian of the expedition. Now commenced 
one of the most memorable retreats in all history. After a 
most harassing march over the hot plains of the Tigris and the 
icy passes of Armenia, the survivors reached the Black Sea, the 
abode of sister Greek colonies. 

Decline of the Spartan State. — The part taken by the Greeks 
in the enterprise of Cyrus led the Persian monarch Artaxerxes 
to seek revenge by interfering anew in the affairs of Greece. 
The Greek cities of Asia were the first to feel the resentment 
of the Great King. The Spartans, under their king Agesilaus, 
extended them timely and efficient aid. At one time it seemed 
as though the Persian authority in Asia Minor would be com- 
pletely destroyed. But meanwhile Persian gold was effecting 



PERIOD OF SPARTAN SUPREMACY. 1 75 

in Greece what the Persian sword was unable to accomplish 
in Asia. The emissaries of Artaxerxes, by persuasions and 
bribes, had secured a coalition of the Grecian states against 
Sparta, and the threatening movements of these forced Agesi- 
laus to return in haste to defend his own country. A disas- 
trous struggle known as the Corinthian War now followed, in 
which the Lacedaemonians contended against the Athenians, 
the Persians, and other allied states. Finally, after all parties 
were weary of the contest, the war was ended by the Peace of An- 
talcidas, so called from the Spartan commissioner who arranged 
the articles of the treaty. By the terms of this peace, famous 
because so infamous, all the cities of Asia Minor, as well as 
some of the islands of the Mediterranean, were handed over to 
the Persians, while the states of Greece were left each in a con- 
dition of isolated independence. 

Sparta has been accused of selfishness in the part she took 
in forcing the Grecian states to accept the terms of the Peace 
of Antalcidas. But we should not be too ready to cast blame 
upon her. It is true that, in order to break the coalition that 
had been formed against her, she bartered away the liberties 
of the Hellenic cities in Asia ; but we must bear in mind that 
this measure was dictated by the instinct of self-preservation. 
There were at Sparta some at least animated by feelings of 
sufficiently generous patriotism to cause them to lament the 
circumstances that thus laid Greece open to the mercy of her 
enemy. Among these was the patriot king Agesilaus, whom 
Plutarch calls the "Thought Commander and King of all 
Greece." Referring to the jealousies and contentions of the 
Hellenic states which had now resulted in making the hated 
Persians arbiters in their affairs, he exclaimed, "Alas for 
Greece ! she has killed enough of her sons to have conquered 
all these barbarians." 

The Peace of Antalcidas left Sparta free to prosecute anew 
her schemes of aggression and tyranny towards the other Gre- 
cian states, that were now too divided and weakened to offer 



176 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

any effectual resistance to her oppressive course. But finally 
the fiery resentment kindled by her tyrannous measures in- 
spired such a determined revolt against her as brought to a 
final end her assumed supremacy over her sister cities. 

Theban Supremacy (371-362 b.c). — It was a city in Bceotia 
that led the uprising against Sparta. This was Thebes. The 
oligarchical government which the Lacedaemonians had set up 
in that capital was overthrown by Pelopidas at the head of a 
company of returned exiles called the _§acred Band. Pelopidas 
was seconded in all his efforts by Epaminondas, one of the 
ablest generals the Grecian race ever produced. Under the 
masterly guidance and inspiration of these patriot leaders, 
Thebes very soon secured a predominating influence in the 
affairs of Greece. 

Like many others who have done most for their generation, 
Epaminondas was often unjustly accused and persecuted. He 
it was who, when his enemies sought to disgrace and annoy him 
by electing him "public scavenger," made, in accepting the 
office, the memorable utterance, " If the office will not reflect 
honor upon me, I will reflect honor upon it." 

At Leuctra (371 B.C.) the Thebans earned the renown of be- 
ing the most invincible soldiers in the world by completely 
overthrowing, with a force of six thousand men, the Spartan 
army of twice that number. Again at Mantinea, in Pelopon- 
nesus, Epaminondas led the Thebans once more to victory 
(362 B.C.); but he himself was slain, and with him fell the hopes 
and power of Thebes. 

Notwithstanding that the few years of Theban history which 
are made illustrious by the patriot spirits of Pelopidas and 
Epaminondas are usually designated as the period of Theban 
Supremacy, yet it is scarcely correct to thus characterize them; 
for Thebes really never secured that position of pre-eminence 
and command for which she made such an heroic struggle. 
But her efforts and sacrifices were not without result: they 



PERIOD OF THEBAN SUPREMACY. 177 

brought to an end the power of Sparta, whose dominance over 
the Hellenic states had ever been so hateful and so oppressive. 
11 Sparta had, however, the consolation to see that none of her 
rivals was, or would be, able to supplant her. The sceptre had, 
indeed, been wrested from her ; but it had at the same time 
been broken to pieces " (Thirlwall). All the states of Greece 
now lay exhausted, worn out by their endless domestic conten- 
tions and wars. There was scarcely sufficient strength left to 
strike one worthy blow against enslavement by the master des- 
tined soon to come from the North. 

9 



I78 ANCIENT HISTORY. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

PERIOD OF MACEDONIAN SUPREMACY. 
(338-323 B.C.) 

Macedonian Rulers of Hellenic Race. — Although political 
power and influence have now passed away from the Grecian 
cities of Sparta, Athens, and Thebes, still we must not think 
that political authority has departed from the Hellenic race; 
for though the mass of the population of the country of Mace- 
donia, which lay to the north of Greece proper, and which is 
now to assume the lead in the civil affairs of the Greeks, may 
not have sprung from identically the same stock as that from 
which the Hellenes arose, still the ruling class of that country 
were the same in race, language, and religion. So this period 
of Macedonian supremacy upon which we are entering belongs 
to the history of the political life of the Greek race, as well as 
the eras marked by Athenian, Spartan, or Theban leadership. 
It was Hellenic institutions, customs, and manners, Hellenic 
language and civilization, that the Macedonians, in the ex- 
tended conquest which we are about to narrate, spread over 
the world. 

Philip of Macedon. — Macedonia first rose to importance 
about 359 B.C., under the reign of Philip II., better known as 
Philip of Macedon. He was a man of pre-eminent ability, of 
wonderful address in diplomacy, and possessed rare genius as 
an organizer and military chieftain. He was the originator 
of the " Macedonian phalanx," a body as renowned in the 
military history of Macedonia as is the " legion " in that of 
Rome. 



PERIOD OF MACEDONIAN SUPREMACY. 1 79 

With his kingdom settled and consolidated at home, Philip's 
ambition led him to seek the mastery of the Grecian states of 
the Peninsula. He attempted to gain his purpose rather by 
artful diplomacy and intrigue than by open force. In the use of 
these weapons he might have been the teacher of the Athenian 
Themistocles. 

Battle of Chaeronea. — Demosthenes at Athens was one of the 
few who seemed to understand the real designs of Philip. His 
penetration, like Pericles's, descried a cloud lowering over 
Greece — this time from the North. With all the fervor of his 
fiery eloquence, he strove to stir up the Athenians to resist the 
encroachments of the King of Macedon. He hurled against 
him his famous " Philippics," speeches so filled with fierce de- 
nunciation that they have given name to all writings character- 
ized by bitter criticism or violent invective. 

At length the Athenians and Thebans united their forces, 
and met Philip upon the field of Chaeronea, in Bceotia. The 
Macedonian phalanx swept everything before it. The power 
and authority of Philip were now extended and acknowledged 
throughout Greece (338 B.C.). 

Plan to Invade Asia. — While the Greek states were divided 
among themselves, they were united in an undying hatred of 
the Persians. They were at this time meditating an enterprise 
fraught with the greatest importance to the history of the world. 
This was a joint expedition against Persia. The march of the 
Ten Thousand Greeks through the very heart of the dominions 
of the Great King had encouraged this national undertaking, 
and illustrated the feasibility of the conquest of Asia. Philip 
was chosen leader of this expedition. All Greece was astir 
with preparation. In the midst of all, Philip was assassinated 
during the festivities attending the marriage of his daughter, 
and his son Alexander succeeded to his place and power (336 

B.C.). 



l8o ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Alexander the Great. — Alexander was only twenty years of 
age when he came to his father's throne. The genius which 
has won for him the title of" Great" was foreshadowed in early 
youth. The familiar and well-told story of the vicious steed 
Bucephalus, which none dared mount or approach, but which 
was subdued in a moment by the boy Alexander, exhibits that 
subtle magnetism of his nature by which he acquired such 
wonderful influence and command over men in after-years. 
The spirit of the man is again shown in the complaint of the 
boy when news of his father's victories came to him : " Friends," 
said he to his playmates, "father will possess himself of every- 
thing, and leave nothing for us to do." 

Alexander Crosses the Hellespont (334 b.c). — In the spring 
of 334, Alexander, with all his plans matured, set out, at the 
head of an army numbering about 35,000, for the conquest of 
the Persian Empire. Now commenced one of the most re- 
markable and swiftly executed campaigns recorded in history. 
Crossing the Hellespont, Alexander routed the Persians at the 
battle of Granicus. By this victory all Asia Minor was laid 
open to the invaders. 

The Gordian Knot. — On Alexander's route through Asia 
Minor was the city of Gordium, where, in the Temple of Jupi- 
ter, hung the famous Gordian knot. Respecting this the fol- 
lowing story is told : An oracle had commanded the Phrygians, 
in a time of great perplexity, to choose as their king the first 
person that came to sacrifice in the Temple of Jupiter. The 
peasant Gordius was the one whom chance designated. He 
was riding in a wagon when the people proclaimed him king. 
Some accounts, however, say that it was his son Midas — who 
was with his father — that was elevated to the throne. Grate- 
ful to the gods for the honor that had fallen upon his house, 
Gordius consecrated the wagon as a memorial in the Temple 
of Zeus. It was gradually spread abroad that an oracle had 



PERIOD OF MACEDONIAN SUPREMACY. l8l 

declared that whoever should untie the skilfully fastened knot 
which united the yoke to the pole of the chariot should be 
master of Asia. Alexander attempted the feat. Unable to 
unloosen the artful knot, he impetuously drew his sword and 
cut it. Hence the phrase "cutting the Gordian knot," mean- 
ing a short way out of a difficulty. The marvellous fulfilment 
of the prediction in the subsequent successes of Alexander 
gave new faith and credit to the oracle. 

The Battle of Issus (333 b.c.).— At the northeast corner of 
the Mediterranean lies the plain of the Issus. Here Alexander 
again defeated the Persian army, numbering 600,000 men. The 
family of Darius, including his mother, wife, and children, fell 
into the hands of Alexander; but the king himself escaped 
from the field, and hastened to his capital, Susa, to raise another 
army to oppose the march of the conqueror. 

Siege of Tyre. — Before penetrating to the heart of the empire, 
Alexander turned to the south, in order to effect the subjuga- 
tion of Phoenicia, that he might command the Phoenician fleets 
and prevent their being used to sever his communication with 
Greece. The island city of Tyre, after a memorable siege, was 
taken by means of a mole, or causeway, built with incredible 
labor through the sea to the city. This mole was constructed 
out of the ruins of old Tyre and the forests of Lebanon. It 
still remains, uniting the desolate rock with the mainland. 
When at last, with the aid of the Sidonian fleet, the city was 
taken, after a siege of seven months, 8000 of the inhabitants 
were slain, and 30,000 sold into slavery — a terrible warning to 
those cities that should dare close their gates against the Mace- 
donian. The reduction of Tyre has been considered the great- 
est military achievement of Alexander. 

Alexander in Egypt.— With the cities of Phoenicia and the 
fleets of the Mediterranean subject to his control, the conquest 



l82 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

of Egypt was easily effected. The Egyptians, indeed, made no 
resistance to the Macedonians, and willingly exchanged mas- 
ters. While in the country Alexander made his mad expedi- 
tion to the oasis of Amnion, located in the Libyan Desert, where 
were a celebrated temple and oracle of Jupiter. To gratify his 
vanity, as well as to impress the superstitious, Alexander de- 
sired to be declared of celestial descent. The priests of the 
temple, in accordance with the wish of the king, gave out that 
the oracle pronounced Alexander to be the son of a god. 

A more worthy enterprise of the conqueror was the founding 
of a city, called after himself Alexandria, at one of the mouths 
of the Nile. The city became the meeting-place of the East 
and the West ; and its importance through many centuries at- 
tests the far-sighted wisdom of its founder. 

The Battle of Arbela. — From Egypt Alexander recommenced 
his march towards the Persian capital. He crossed the Eu- 
phrates and Tigris without opposition ; but upon the plain of 
Arbela, not far from ancient Nineveh, he found his further ad- 
vance disputed by Darius with a million of men. Again the 
Macedonian phalanx "cut through the ranks of the Persians as 
the boat cuts through the waves." The fate of Darius has been 
already narrated in our story of the last of the Persian kings.* 

Alexander in the Aryan Home. — Urged on by an uncon- 
trollable desire to possess himself of the most remote countries 
of which any accounts had ever reached him, Alexander now led 
his army to the north, and, after subduing many tribes that dwelt 
about the Caspian Sea and among the mountainous regions of 
what is now known as Afghanistan, he boldly conducted his 
soldiers over the snowy and dangerous passes of the Hindu 
Kush, and descended into the fair provinces of Bactria, which 
region we have already described as the earliest home of the 

*See p. 117. 



PERIOD OF MACEDONIAN SUPREMACY. 1 83 

various families of the Aryan race. Had Alexander possessed 
our modern knowledge of the wanderings and relationships of 
the different Aryan peoples, he might have claimed, as he would 
have been very likely to do, the entire country as having once 
belonged to his ancestors. 

The Macedonians conquered not only Bactria,but Sogdiana, 
a country lying north of the Oxus. The capture of the Sogdian 
Rock is considered one of the great exploits of Alexander. 
This was a strongly garrisoned citadel, perched upon a rocky 
eminence with cliffs so lofty and precipitous that it was deemed 
impregnable. The usual demand for surrender was answered 
by the insulting question, " Can the Macedonians, who can do 
almost everything, also fly ?" But some soldiers of Alexander's 
army managed, with the greatest difficulty, to climb to a ledge 
of rock that overhung and commanded the fortress, which was 
thus forced to surrender. Among the captives was a beautiful 
Bactrian princess, Roxana by name, who became the bride of 
Alexander. 

Throughout those distant regions Alexander founded nu- 
merous cities, several of which bore his own name. One of 
them is said to have been built, wall and houses, in twenty 
days. These new cities were peopled with captives and by 
those whom fatigue and wounds would no longer allow to fol- 
low the conqueror in his swift campaigns. Alexander's stay 
in Bactria was shadowed by his murder of his dearest friend 
Clitus, who had saved his life at Granicus. Both were flushed 
with wine when the quarrel arose: after the deed, Alexander 
was overwhelmed with remorse. 

Conquests in India. — With the countries north of the Hindu 
Kush subdued and settled, Alexander recrossed the mountains, 
and led his army down upon the rich and crowded plains of 
India. Here again he showed himself invincible, and received 
the submission of many of the native princes of the country. 
The most formidable resistance encountered by the Mace- 



184 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

donians was offered by a strong and wealthy king named 
Porus. Captured at last and brought into the presence of 
Alexander, his proud answer to the conqueror's question as to 
how he thought he should be treated was, " Like a king." The 
impulsive Alexander gave him back his throne and kingdom. 

Alexander's desire was to extend his conquests to the Gan- 
ges, but his soldiers began to murmur because of the length 
and hardness of their campaigns, and he reluctantly gave up the 
undertaking. To secure the conquests already made, he found- 
ed at different points Greek towns and colonies. One of these 
he named Alexandria, in honor of himself; another Bucephala, 
in memory of his favorite steed ; and still another Nicaea, for 
his victories. The modern museum at Lahore contains many 
relics of Greek art, dug up on the site of these Macedonian 
cities and camps. 

The return of Alexander's army was through Gedrosia, now 
Beloochistan, a region frightful with burning deserts, amidst 
which his soldiers endured almost incredible privations and 
sufferings. After a trying and calamitous march of over two 
months, the survivors reached the old Persian capital Susa. 
There, amid festivities and games, they forgot the hardships 
and dangers of their numerous campaigns, which had put to 
the severest test every power of human endurance. 

Plans and Death of Alexander.— As the capital of his vast 
empire, which now stretched from the Ionian Sea to the Indus, 
Alexander chose the ancient Babylon, upon the Euphrates. 
His designs were to push his conquests as far to the west as he 
had extended them to the east. Arabia, Carthage, Italy, and 
Spain were to be added to his already vast domains. Indeed, 
the plans of Alexander embraced nothing less than the union 
and Hellenizing of the world. Not only were the peoples of 
Asia and Europe to be blended by means of colonies, but even 
the floras of the two continents were to be intermingled by 
the transplanting of fruits and trees from one continent to the 



PERIOD OF MACEDONIAN SUPREMACY. 1 85 

other. Common laws and customs, a common language and 
religion, were to unite the world in one great family. Inter- 
marriages were to blend the races. Alexander himself married 
a daughter of Darius III.; and to 10,000 of his soldiers whom 
he encouraged to take Asiatic wives he gave munificent gifts. 
He adopted the dress of a Persian monarch, and surrounded 
himself with all the extravagant ceremonials of an Oriental 
court. 

In the midst of his vast projects, Alexander was seized with 
a sudden illness, and died at Babylon, B.C. 323, in the thirty- 
second year of his age. His body was carried to Alexandria, 
and there enclosed in a golden coffin, and over it was raised a 
splendid mausoleum. His ambition for celestial honors was 
gratified in his death; for in Egypt and elsewhere temples 
were dedicated to him, and divine worship was paid to his 
statues. 

Character of Alexander.— We must not pass this point with- 
out a word, at least, respecting the character of this remarkable 
man, who, in a brief career of twelve years, changed entirely 
the currents of history, and pressed them into channels which 
they would not have followed but for the influence of his life 
and achievements. 

We cannot deny to Alexander, in addition to a remarkable 
genius for military affairs, a profound and comprehensive intel- 
lect. The wisdom shown in the selection of Alexandria as the 
great depot of the exchanges of the East and the West has been 
amply proved by the rare fortunes of the city. His plans for 
the union of Europe and Asia, and the fusion of their different 
races, might indeed seem visionary, were it not that the degree 
in which this was actually realized during subsequent centuries 
attests the sanity of the attempt. He had fine tastes, and liber- 
ally encouraged art, science, and literature. Apelles, Praxiteles, 
and Lysippus had in him a munificent patron ; and to his pre- 
ceptor Aristotle he sent large collections of natural - history 

9* 



l86 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

objects, gathered in his extended expeditions. He had an im- 
pulsive, kind, and generous nature : he wept over the body of 
Darius, covering the mutilated remains with his own royal man- 
tle ; and he repented in bitter tears over the body of his faith- 
ful Clitus. 

But he was self-seeking and self-indulgent, foolishly vain, and 
madly ambitious of military glory. He plunged into shameful 
excesses, and gave way to bursts of passion that transformed a 
usually mild and generous disposition into the fury of a mad- 
man. The vindictive cruelty manifested in his treatment of 
the Tyrians can be only partially palliated by reference to the 
spirit and usages of his age. The burning of the palace at 
Persepolis was an act of wanton folly, only to be extenuated by 
subjecting him to the charge of bestial intoxication. The con- 
tradictions of his life cannot, perhaps, be better expressed than 
in the words once applied to the gifted Themistocles : "He 
was greater in genius than in character." 



CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF GRECIAN HISTORY. 



IPelasgians in possession of the land. . 
Hellenes conquer and mingle with 
the Pelasgians f 
The Trojan War 
The Dorians enter Peloponnesus. . . 

Early History of ( Lycurgus gives laws to Sparta 

Sparta ( The Messenian Wars 



about 



B.C. 
2000 



194 



Early History of ^ 
Athens 



Period of Graeco- 
Persian War. . . 



Period of Athenian 
Supremacy 



Events of Pelopon- 
nesian War 



Cecrops founds Athens about 

Rule of the Archons " 

Rebellion of Cylon " 

Legislation of Solon " 

Pisistratus rules 

_ Expulsion of the Pisistratids 

First expedition of Xerxes (led by Mar- 

donius) 

Rattle of Marathon 

Battle of Thermopylae 

Battle of Salamis 

Battles of Plataea and Mycale 

Athens rebuilt 

Aristides chosen first president of the Con- 
federacy of Delos 

Themistocles sent into exile 

Ostracism of Cimon 

Pericles at head of affairs — Periclean Age. 

Beginning of Peloponnesian War 

Pestilence at Athens 

Expedition against Syracuse 

Battle of yEgos Potamos 

Close of the War 



f Rule of the Thirty Tyrants at Athens 

Expedition of the Ten Thousand 

Period of Spartan! Peace of Antalcidas 
Supremacy.. 



Oligarchy established at Thebes '. . . . 

Spartan power broken on the field of Leuc- 
tra 

f Battle of Leuctra which secures supremacy 

Period of Theban I of Thebes 

Supremacy 1 Battle of Mantinea and death of Epaminon- 

I das 



Period of Macedo- 
nian Supremacy. 



Battle of Chaeronea 

Death of Philip of Macedon 

Alexander crosses the Hellespont. 

Battle of Issus 

Battle of Arbela 

Death of Alexander at Babylon. . . 



1400 
■i 184 
1 104 

900 
743-668 

1550 

[ 050-620 

620 

600 

560-527 

5io 



492 
490 
480 
480 
479 
478 

477 

47i 

459 

469-429 

431 
430 
415 
405 
404 

404-403 
401-400 

382 

371 



371 
362 

33 l 
336 

334 

333 

33i 

323 



l88 ANCIENT HISTORY. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

STATES FORMED FROM THE MACEDONIAN EMPIRE. 

Division of the Empire of Alexander. — There was no one who 
could wield the sword that fell from the hand of Alexander. 
For several years after his death, the vast empire he had con- 
solidated was torn and distracted by quarrels and wars, until 
at last the enormous domain over which he had ruled was 
shattered into fragments. Four well-defined and important 
states, however, rose out of the ruins. These were apportioned 
among four of Alexander's generals. The great horn being 
broken, for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds 
of heaven.* To Seleucus Nicator fell all the countries between 
the Mediterranean and the Indus; to Lysimachus, Thrace and 
Asia Minor; to Cassander, Macedonia and Greece; and to 
Ptolemy, Egypt. 

Of the minor states three deserve notice : namely, Pergamus, 
Pontus, and Greece proper. We must trace very briefly the 
story of each of these larger and smaller states until they were 
absorbed one after another by the now rapidly rising empire 
of Rome. 

Thrace. — Thrace was the least important of the four larger 
states. After the death of Lysimachus, it came under the sway 
of the sovereigns of Macedonia, and followed very closely the 
fortunes of that country. It constituted the outpost of European 
civilization, and its story is but a weary recital of frontier war- 
fare with barbarian tribes. 

* Dan. viii. 8. 



STATES FORMED FROM THE MACEDONIAN EMPIRE. 1 89 

Macedonia. — Macedonia soon lost the greater part of Greece, 
and from the position of " mistress of half the world " fell back 
into the obscurity from which the genius of Philip and Alex- 
ander had lifted her. For aiding Carthage during the Punic 
Wars she incurred the anger of Rome, which resulted, after 
much intrigue and long wars, in the country being subdued 
and erected into a Roman province, 148 B.C. 

Syria, or the Kingdom of the SeleucidaB (312-65 b.c.).— This 
kingdom played an important part in the civil history of the 
world during the three centuries of its existence. The rulers 
who held sway during this period are called Seleucidae, from 
Seleucus Nicator, the founder of the kingdom. Besides being 
a ruler of unusual ability, Seleucus was a liberal patron of learn- 
ing and art, being himself a magnificent builder. Throughout 
his dominions, he founded a vast number of cities, some of 
which endured for many centuries, and were known far and 
wide as centres of trade and Hellenic civilization. Upon the 
Tigris, as a rival to Babylon, he built Seleucia, which grew rap- 
idly into a capital of 600,000 inhabitants, which in its customs, 
manners, and government was simply a Greek city transplant- 
ed from Europe. As Seleucia rose, Babylon sank into obscu- 
rity, and soon disappeared from history. Six other cities in 
different parts of his empire bore the name Seleucia, after him- 
self; sixteen he called Antioch, in honor of his father; five he 
named Laodicea, for his mother ; still others bore the name 
Apamea, in honor of one of his wives. Antioch, on the Oron- 
tes, in Northern Syria, became the capital of the kingdom, and 
obtained an influence and renown as a centre of population 
and trade which have given its name a sure place in history. 
Antioch still remains ; but most of the other cities are gone, 
with scarcely a trace left of their former existence. Thus the 
site of the great capital Seleucia, on the Tigris, once the rival 
of Babylon, is now marked by just a few mounds and heaps of 
rubbish. 



190 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

The successors of Seleucus Nicator led the kingdom through 
checkered fortunes. Antiochus IV. (176-164 B.C.), by the pil- 
lage and desecration of the temple at Jerusalem, drove the 
Jews to revolt, under the lead of the priest Mattathias and his 
son Judas Maccabaeus, which event has already been noticed 
in the history of the Jewish people. Others kept the kingdom 
in constant contention with the states of Asia Minor on the 
west, with the Bactrians and Parthians on the east, and with 
Egypt on the south. At last, brought into collision with Rome, 
the country was overrun by Pompey the Great, and became a 
part of the Roman Republic, 65 B.C. 

Kingdom of the Ptolemies in Egypt (323-30 b.c). — The 
Graeco-Egyptian empire of the Ptolemies was by far the most 
important, in its influence upon the civilization of the world, 
of any or all the kingdoms that owed their origin to the con- 
quests of Alexander. The founder of the house and dynasty 
was Ptolemy I., surnamed Soter (323-283 B.C.). His de- 
scendants ruled in Egypt for nearly three centuries, a period 
most famous in the intellectual life of the world. Ptolemy was 
a general under Alexander, and seemed to possess much of his 
restless energy and breadth of view, with a happy freedom from 
his great commander's faults. 

Upon the partition of the empire of Alexander, Ptolemy re- 
ceived Egypt, with parts of Arabia and Libya. To these he 
added by conquest Ccelesyria, Phoenicia, Palestine, and Cy- 
prus. Following the usage of the time, he transported 100,000 
Jews from Jerusalem to Alexandria, attached them to his 
person and policies by wise and conciliatory measures, and 
thus effected at this great capital of the Nile that blending 
of the races of the East and the West which was the dream 
of Alexander. 

The possession of the forests of Mount Lebanon, and the 
command of the artisans of Phoenicia, enabled Ptolemy to real- 
ize his plans of making Egypt a naval power, and the empo- 



STATES FORMED FROM THE MACEDONIAN EMPIRE. 191 

rium of the carrying trade between Asia and Europe. Alex- 
andria became the great depot of exchange for the productions 
of the world. But it was not alone the exchange of material 
products that was comprehended in Ptolemy's scheme. His 
aim was to make his capital the intellectual centre of the 
world — the place where the arts, sciences, literatures, and even 
the religions of the world should meet and mingle. He found- 
ed the famous Museum, which became the "University of the 
East." Poets, artists, philosophers, and teachers in all depart- 
ments of learning were encouraged to settle in Alexandria by 
the conferring of immunities and privileges, and by gifts and 
munificent patronage. His court embraced the learning and 
genius of the age. He also established the renowned Alex- 
andrian Library, and built the Pharos, or light -house, which 
guided the fleets of the world to his capital. The splendid 
Mausoleum that he raised over the body of Alexander was at 
once a monument of his taste and of his love for his young 
commander. Ptolemy also wrote a life of Alexander, small 
fragments only of which have been preserved ; but these suf- 
ficiently attest his skill and accuracy as an author. 

Ptolemy Philadelphus (283-247 B.C.) followed closely in the 
footsteps of his father, carrying out, as far as possible, the plans 
and policies of the preceding reign. To secure Egypt's com- 
mercial supremacy, the old Pharaonic canal uniting the Nile 
and the Red Sea was restored, and roads constructed to facili- 
tate the transportation of merchandise from the ports on that 
sea to the river. Philadelphus added largely to the royal li- 
brary, and extended to scholars the same liberal patronage as 
his father before him. 

The surname Philadelphus ("loving brother") was given 
this Ptolemy on account of his tender devotion to his wife 
Arsinoe, who was also his sister. This usage of intermarriage 
among the members of the royal family was one of the causes 
of the contentions and calamities which at last overwhelmed 
with woes and infamy the house of the Ptolemies. 



192 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Ptolemy III. (247-222 B.C.) was called by the Egyptians 
Euergetes (benefactor) because in one of his wars he recapt- 
ured and placed again in their temples some statues of the 
Egyptian gods which the Persian conqueror Cambyses and 
the Assyrian Sargon had borne away as trophies. He was pos- 
sessed of great military genius, and under him the dominions 
of the Ptolemies touched their utmost limits ; and the capital 
Alexandria reached the culminating point in her fame as the 
centre of Greek civilization. 

Altogether the Ptolemies reigned in Egypt almost exactly 
three centuries (323-30 B.C.). Those rulers who held the throne 
for the last two hundred years were, with few exceptions, a suc- 
cession of monsters, such as even Rome in her worst days 
could scarcely equal. These monarchs plunged into the most 
despicable excesses, and were guilty of every folly and cruelty. 
The usage of intermarriage, already mentioned, led to endless 
family quarrels, which resulted in fratricide and matricide, and 
all the dark deeds known to the calendar of royal crime. The 
story of the renowned Cleopatra, the last of the house of the 
Ptolemies, will be told in connection with Roman history, to 
which it properly belongs. 

Pergamus. — This was originally a fragment of the kingdom 
of Lysimachus, which broke away in revolt, and gradually, 
through the favor of the Romans, grew into a powerful state 
which at the time of Eumenes II. (197-159 B.C.) embraced a 
considerable part of Asia Minor. Its capital, also called Per- 
gamus, became a most noted centre of Greek learning and 
civilization, and through its famous library and university 
gained the renown of being, next to Alexandria in Egypt, the 
greatest city of the Hellenic world. In 133 B.C. Attalus III., 
after killing all his heirs, ended a life which was a perfect 
tissue of follies by bequeathing his kingdom to the Roman 
people, who immediately took steps to secure the prize, and 
made it into a province under the name of Asia. 



STATES FORMED FROM THE MACEDONIAN EMPIRE. 1 93 

Pontus. — Pontus was another kingdom of Asia Minor, which 
has a place in hfstory on account of the lustre reflected upon 
it by the transcendant ability of one of its kings, Mithridates 
the Great. The country was called Pontus (Greek for sea) be- 
cause of its position upon the Euxine. Almost from the time 
of Homer, Grecian colonies had been spreading Hellenic cult- 
ure and civilization throughout the region. It was one of the 
first countries that severed itself from the empire of Alexander. 

Mithridates the Great (120-63 B - c -) spread the fame of his 
little kingdom throughout the world by his able and for a long 
time successful resistance to the Roman armies. He was 
strong in body and mind. To secure himself against attempts 
upon his life, it is said that he inured his system to poisons 
to such a degree that the most virulent could be taken by him 
without harm. Pliny tells us that he could speak twenty-two 
languages, and was thus able to address in their own tongue 
the subjects of any province of his kingdom. His wars with 
Rome belong rather to the history of that city than to the an- 
nals of Greece. Defeated by Pompey, and plotted against by 
his own son Pharnaces, in despair he committed suicide (63 
B.C.), leaving unrealized his plans for the conquest of the Ro- 
man world. 

Greece: Achaean and JEtolian Leagues. — The political affairs 
of Greece proper during the period embraced between the 
death of Alexander and the conquest of the country by the Ro- 
mans are chiefly comprehended in the fortunes of two confed- 
eracies, or leagues, one of which, called the Achaean League, 
embraced the greater portion of the states of Peloponnesus ; 
while the other, known as the ^Etolian League, comprised the 
states of Central Greece. 

United, these two confederacies might have maintained the 
political independence of Greece ; but that spirit of dissension 
which we have seen to be the bane of the Hellenic peoples led 
them to become, in the hands of intriguing Rome, weapons 



194 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

first for crushing Macedonia, and then for grinding each other 
to pieces. • 

Soon after the conquest of Macedonia, the ^Etolians were 
made tributary to Rome. At the same time, a thousand of the 
leading citizens of the cities of the Achaean League were, on 
the pretext of their conspiring against Rome, transported to 
Italy, and for seventeen years kept as political prisoners in 
different cities in Etruria. At the end of that time the exiles 
were allowed to return home, the perfidious Romans foreseeing 
and hoping that their desire for revenge would betray them 
into some violent act which would afford Rome a pretext for 
invading and confiscating their territory. All fell out as antici- 
pated. The exiles were no sooner returned to their native 
land than they stirred up their countrymen to a revolt against 
Rome. Corinth, which, after the Peloponnesian War had ruined 
Athens, was the most splendid city of all Greece, was taken by 
the Roman army and laid in ashes (146 B.C.). This was the 
last act in the long and varied drama of the political life of 
ancient Greece. Henceforth it constituted simply a portion of 
the Roman Empire. 

Review. — We have now traced the political fortunes of the 
Hellenic race through about a millennium of years of authentic 
history, starting with the earliest constitutions of aristocratical 
Sparta and republican Athens. We have followed the growth 
of the Grecian states during the first centuries of their exist- 
ence, and have watched their memorable struggle with the 
power of the Persian kings ; we have noticed the brilliant era 
of Athenian supremacy which followed that contest; we have 
seen the wars and calamities finally brought by the mutual 
jealousies of the two rival states of Athens and Sparta, not 
only upon themselves, but upon all Hellas ; then, after brief 
periods of Spartan and Theban supremacy, we have seen Mace- 
donia assuming the leadership of the Greek race, and under an 
Alexander uniting half the world in a single kingdom, and 



STATES FORMED FROM THE MACEDONIAN EMPIRE. 1 95 

spreading Hellenic ideas, institutions, and language from Italy 
to the regions beyond the Indus; we have also seen this enor- 
mous Macedonian empire, through lack of that capacity to 
unite for political ends which was the fatal defect of the Greek 
character, torn into pieces, and these fragments, after more or 
less varied political fortunes, seized upon one after another by 
the rapacity of Rome. 

In succeeding chapters it will be our pleasanter task to trace 
the more brilliant and worthy fortunes of the intellectual life 
of Hellas-: to tell how, "captured, she led captive her captor" — 
how by the spell of her genius and learning she gained sway 
over the minds of her rough conquerors. 



196 ANCIENT HISTORY. 



RULERS OF THE KINGDOM OF THE SELEUCTDiE. 

Seleucus Nicator, founder of the kingdom 312-281 

Antiochus 1 281-261 

Antiochus II 261-246 

Seleucus II 246-226 

Seleucus III 226-223 

Antiochus III 223-187 

Seleucus IV 187-176 

Antiochus IV. (revolt of Jews under Judas Maccabaeus) 176-164 

Antiochus V 164-162 

Several obscure names 162-69 

Antiochus VIII., last of the Seleucidse 69-65 



RULERS OF THE GRiECO- EGYPTIAN KINGDOM OF THE 
PTOLEMIES. 

B.C. 

Ptolemy I. Soter 3 2 3~ 2 83 

Ptolemy II. Philadelphus 283-247 

Ptolemy III. Euergetes 247-222 

Ptolemy IV 222-205 

Ptolemy V 205-181 

Ptolemy VI 181-146 

Several obscure names ■. 146-5 l 

Cleopatra, last of the line 5i - 3° 

Egypt becomes a province of the Roman Empire 30 



RELIGION OF THE GREEKS. 



197 



CHAPTER XX. 

RELIGION OF THE GREEKS. 

Cosmography of the Greeks.— A study of the religion of the 
Greeks must be preceded by some slight knowledge, at least, 
of their cosmography, or ideas of the figure and relation of the 
different parts of the universe. 

They supposed the earth to be, as it appeared, a plane, round 
in form like a shield. Around it flowed the "mighty strength 
of the ocean river," a stream broad and deep, beyond which on 
all sides lay realms of Cimmerian darkness and terror. From 
this encircling ocean stream, all the rivers and seas of the earth 
drew their waters. The heavens were a solid vault or dome, 
whose edges shut down close upon the earth. Beneath the 
earth, reached by subterranean passages, was Hades, a vast 
region, the realm of departed shades. Still beneath this was 
Tartarus, a pit deep and dark, made fast by strong gates of 
brass and iron. This awful prison-house of the gods was as 
far beneath the earth as the heavens were above ; and of the 
latter distance we are left to conjecture from the fact that when 
Jupiter, in a fit of anger, hurled Hephaestus from the heavens 
to earth, he fell " from morn to noon, from noon to dewy eve." 
Sometimes the poets seem to represent the gloomy regions 
beyond the ocean stream as the cheerless abode of the dead. 

The sun was an archer-god, borne in a fiery chariot up and 
down the steep pathway of the skies. Awaiting the god in the 
west, on the ocean stream, was a winged couch, in which he 
sank to rest while gentle winds wafted the golden vessel over 
the waters round to the east, where a new chariot and fresh 
steeds awaited him. Naturally it was imagined that the regions 



198 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

in the extreme east and west, which were bathed in the near 
splendors of the sunrise and the sunset, were lands of delight 
and plenty. The eastern was the favored country of the Ethi- 
opians, a land which even Jupiter himself so loved to visit that 
often he was found absent from Olympus when sought by sup- 
pliants. The western region, adjoining the ocean stream, was 
the delightful Garden of the Hesperides. Here, too, were the 
Islands of the Blest, the abodes of the departed shades of heroes 
and poets. 

The Olympian Council. — There were twelve members of the 
celestial council, six gods and as many goddesses. These were 
Jupiter, the father of gods and men ; Neptune, the ruler of the 
sea; Apollo, the god of light, of music, and of prophecy ; Mars, 
the god of war ; Vulcan, the god of fire and the patron of the 
useful arts ; Mercury, the patron of eloquence and herald of 
the celestials; Juno, the queen of Jupiter j Minerva, the pro- 
moter of science and civilization : Diana, the goddess of the 
chase ; Venus, of love and beauty : Vesta, of the hearth : Ceres, 
of grains and harvests. 

Lesser Deities and Monsters. — Besides the great gods and 
goddesses that constituted the Olympian council, there was an 
almost infinite number of other deities, celestial personages, and 
monsters neither human nor divine. Pluto ruled over the lower 
realms; Bacchus was the god of wine; Cupid, of love; Iris, 
of the rainbow ; Hebe was the cupbearer of the celestials ; 
Nemesis was the avenger of crime; yEolus was the ruler of 
the winds, which he confined in a cave secured by mighty 
gates. There were nine Muses, inspirers of art and song. 
Three Fates allotted life and death. The Nereids were 
nymphs .of the sea, with bodies half human and half fish, the 
daughters of Neptune. The Harpies were terrible monsters 
with female faces and the body and claws of birds. They were 
sisters, three in number, and lived on the Strophades, in the 



RELIGION OF THE GREEKS. 199 

Ionian Sea. They tore and devoured their prey with greedy 
voracity. The Gorgons were also three sisters, with hair en- 
twined with serpents. A single gaze upon them chilled the 
beholder to stone. The Chimaera was a monster with " the 
head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a serpent, and 
vomited forth fire." (From this impossible monster we have 
come to call any improbable thing a " chimera.") Besides these 
there were the Dragon, which guarded the golden apples of the 
Hesperides; Scylla and Charybdis, sea-monsters that made 
perilous the passage of the Sicilian Straits; the Centaurs, the 
Sphinxes, and a thousand others. 

Explanations of the Mythological Monsters.— Many at least 
of these monsters were simply personifications of the malign 
and destructive powers of nature. Thus the Harpies were the 
swift storms that tear to pieces and ingulf the vessel of the 
mariner; the Gorgons were also tempests that lash the sea 
into a fury that paralyzes the affrighted sailor ; the Chimaera 
was a volcano in Lycia, whose foot and slopes abounded in 
different animals. (The Chimaera flame is still seen issuing 
from a mountain opposite Olympus) ; Scylla and Charybdis were 
dangerous whirlpools off the coast of Sicily. " 

The fact that these monsters were merely personifications of 
the evil and terrifying powers or aspects of nature was, indeed, 
forgotten or not understood at all by the common people j and 
they believed them to be real creatures, with all the parts and 
habits given them by the poets— and often the poets themselves 
seemed possessed of the same idea. 

Nature of the Gods.— The great gods and goddesses were 
simply magnified human beings, possessing all their virtues, 
and often their weaknesses. They gave way to fits of anger 
and jealousy. "Jupiter deceives, and Juno is constantly prac- 
tising her wiles." All the celestial council, at the sight of 
Vulcan limping across the palace floor, burst into "inextin- 



200 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

guishable laughter ;" and Venus, weeping, moves all to tears. 
They surpass mortals rather in power than in size of body. 
They can render themselves visible or invisible to human eyes. 
Their food is ambrosia and nectar ; their movements are swift 
as light. They may suffer pain ; but death can never come 
to them, for they are immortal. Their abode is Mount Olym- 
pus and the airy regions above the earth. 

Modes of Divine Communication. — In the early ages the gods 
were believed to often visit the earth and mingle with men. But 
even in Homer's time this familiar intercourse was a thing of the 
past — a tradition of a golden age that had passed away. Their 
forms were no longer seen nor their voices heard. In these 
later and more degenerate times the recognized modes of 
divine communication with men were by oracles, and by cas- 
ual and unusual sights and sounds, as thunder and lightning, a 
sudden tempest, an eclipse, a flight of birds, or any strange 
coincidence. 

Grecian Oracles. — All peoples and races have believed that 
their gods have a knowledge of the future, and that they are 
able and willing to reveal these secrets to men. The Greeks 
thought that futurities were made known by Zeus or Jupiter, 
and especially by Apollo, who was the god of prophecy, the re- 
vealer. Not everywhere, but only in chosen places, did these 
gods manifest their presence and communicate the divine will. 
These favored spots were called oracles, as were also the re- 
sponses there received. There were twenty- two oracles of 
Apollo in different parts of the Grecian world, but a much 
smaller number of those of Jupiter. These were usually lo- 
cated in wild and desolate spots — in dark forests or among 
gloomy mountains. The most famous of the oracles were the 
one at Dodona, in Epirus, and that at Delphi, in Phocis. At 
Dodona the priests listened in the dark forests for the voice 
of Zeus in the rustling leaves of the sacred oak. At Delphi 



RELIGION OF THE GREEKS. 201 

there was a deep fissure in the ground, which emitted stupefy- 
ing vapors, that were thought to be the inspiring breath of 
Apollo. Over the spot was erected a splendid temple, in 
honor of the oracle. The revelation was received by the 
Pythia, or priestess, seated upon a tripod placed over the 
orifice. As she became overpowered by the influence of the 
prophetic exhalations, she uttered the message of the god. 
These mutterings of the Pythia — perhaps hysterical and half 
unconscious, yet probably bearing upon the matter with which 
her mind must have been impressed — were taken down by at- 
tendant priests, interpreted, and written in hexameter verse. 
Sometimes the will of Zeus was communicated to the pious 
seeker by dreams and visions granted while sleeping in the 
temple of the oracle. 

The oracle of Delphi gained a celebrity wide as the world : 
it was often consulted by the monarchs of Asia and the people 
of Rome in time of extreme danger and perplexity. Among 
the Greeks scarcely any undertaking was entered upon without 
the will and sanction of the oracle being first sought. 

We have already noticed the ambiguous or double meaning 
of many of the responses of the oracles. That their credit 
might not be impaired, the responses were usually delivered in 
such a way that they would correspond with the event, however 
affairs might turn. Croesus is told that, if he undertake his ex- 
pedition against Persia, he will destroy a great empire. He 
did, but the empire was his own. The Athenians are com- 
manded to seek safety behind the " wooden walls." From 
among the forests, the palisades, and the ships, they chose for 
refuge their fleet ; and through the happy turn of events the 
Delphian oracle received unbounded credit and honor from 
the grateful Athenians. 

Oracles owed their origin to superstition, and their per- 
petuation to deceit and fraud. Politicians secured by bribes 
such responses as would further their designs. As the world 
advanced in knowledge, the belief in supernatural communi- 

10 



202 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

cations was weakened, and the influence of the oracles gradu- 
ally declined. In Cicero's day they were in ill-repute ; but 
they still continued to be consulted until the fourth century 
after Christ. 

Ideas of the Future. — To the Greeks life was so bright and 
joyous a thing that they looked upon death as a great calamity. 
They therefore pictured life after death, except in the case of 
a favored few, as being hopeless and aimless. The Elysian 
Fields, away in the land of sunset, were, indeed, filled with 
every delight; but this was the abode only of the great heroes 
and benefactors of the race. The great mass of mankind were 
doomed to Hades, where the spirit existed as " a feeble, joyless 
phantom." While we believe that the soul, freed from the 
body by the event of death, becomes more active and strong, 
the Greeks thought that without the body it became but a 
feeble image of its former self. So long as the body remained 
unburied, the shade wandered restless in Hades ; hence the 
sacredness of the rites of sepulture. 

The Sacred Games. — The celebrated games of the Greeks had 
their origin in the belief of their Aryan ancestors that the de- 
parted shades were gratified or appeased by such spectacles as 
delighted them during their earthly life. During the Heroic 
Age these festivals were simply sacrifices or games performed 
at the tomb or about the pyre of the dead. Gradually these 
grew into religious festivals observed by an entire city or com- 
munity, and were celebrated near the oracle or shrine of the 
god in whose honor they were instituted. By the sixth cen- 
tury B.C. they had lost their local and assumed a national 
character. Among these festivals, four acquired a world-wide 
celebrity. These were the Olympian, celebrated in honor of 
Zeus, at Olympia, in Peloponnesus; the Pythian, in honor of 
Apollo, near his shrine and oracle at Delphi ; the Nemean, 
also in honor of the god of prophecy, at Nemea ; and the 



RELIGION OF THE GREEKS. 203 

Isthmian, held in honor of Neptune, on the narrow isthmus of 
Corinth. 

The Olympian Games. — Of these four national festivals the 
Olympian secured the greatest renown. In 776 B.C. Korcebus 
was victor in the foot-race at Olympia, an event so important 
in the estimation of the Greeks that they reckoned dates from 
it, making that year the starting-point in their chronology. The 
games were held every fourth year, and the interval between 
two successive festivals was known as an Olympiad. The date 
of an occurrence was given by saying that it happened in the 
first, second, third, or fourth year of such an Olympiad — the 
first, second, or third, etc. 

The contests consisted of foot-races, boxing, wrestling, and 
other athletic games. Later, chariot-racing was introduced 
and became the most popular of all the contests. The com- 
petitors must be of Hellenic race ; must have undergone ten 
months' training in the gymnasium ; and must, moreover, be un- 
blemished by any crime against the state or the gods. Spec- 
tators from all parts of the world crowded the festivals. The 
deputies of the different states vied with one another in the rich- 
ness and splendor of their chariots and equipments, and in the 
magnificence of their retinues. 

The victor was crowned with a garland of wild olives; 
heralds proclaimed abroad his name j his native city received 
him as a conqueror, sometimes through a breach made in the 
city walls ; his statues, executed by famous artists, were erected 
at Olympia and in his own city ; sometimes even divine honor 
and worship were accorded to him ; and poets and orators vied 
with the artist in perpetuating the name and deeds of him who 
had reflected undying honor upon his native state. 

Influence of the Grecian Games. — For about one thousand 
years, from the sixth century B.C. until the Olympian games 
were abolished by the Roman emperor Theodosius, a.d. 396, 



204 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

these national festivals exerted an immense influence upon the 
social, religious, and literary life of Hellas. They enkindled 
among the widely scattered Hellenic states and colonies a 
common literary taste and enthusiasm ; for into all the four 
great festivals, excepting the Olympian, were introduced, sooner 
or later, contests in poetry, oratory, and history. During the 
festivals poets and historians read their choicest productions, 
and artists exhibited their masterpieces. The extraordinary 
honors accorded to the victors stimulated the contestants to 
the utmost, and strung to the highest tension every power of 
body and mind. To this fact we owe some of the grandest 
productions of the Greek race. 

They moreover promoted intercourse and trade ; for the fes- 
tivals naturally became great centres of traffic and exchange 
during the continuance of the games. They softened the 
manners of the people, turning their thoughts from martial ex- 
ploits and giving the states respite from war; for during the 
month in which the Olympian games were held it was sacrile- 
gious to engage in military expeditions. We have already seen 
how the Spartans, rather than violate this " truce of God " by 
marching during the festival days, allowed the Athenians to 
gather all the honors of Marathon, and left Leonidas unsupport- 
ed at the fatal Pass of Thermopylae. 

They also promoted intercourse between the different Gre- 
cian cities and states, and kept alive common Hellenic feelings 
and sentiments. In all these ways, though they never drew the 
states into a common political union, still they did impress a 
common character upon their social, intellectual, and religious 
life. 

The Amphictyonic Council. — The Amphictyonic Council was 
a league or association of twelve tribes, whose main object was 
the protection of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Another of 
its purposes was, by humane regulations, to mitigate the cruel- 
ties of war. This was one of the first steps taken in the sci- 



RELIGION OF THE GREEKS. 205 

ence of international law. The following oath was taken by 
the members of the league : " We will not destroy any Am- 
phictyonic town, nor cut it off from running water, in war or in 
peace; if any one shall do so, we will march against him and 
destroy his city. If any one shall plunder the property of the 
god, or shall be cognizant thereof, or shall take treacherous 
counsel against the things in his temple at Delphi, we will pun- 
ish him with foot and hand and voice, and by every means in 
our power." 

The First Sacred War .was a crusade of ten years carried on 
by the Amphictyons against the city of Cirrha, because of in- 
sults and extortions which the inhabitants of that place had 
been guilty of towards pilgrims to the Delphian shrine. The 
city was finally taken, levelled to the ground, and the wrath of 
the gods invoked upon any one who should dare rebuild it. 
This contest occurred in the first part of the sixth century B.C. 
(595-585). 

Hospitality among the Ancient Greeks. — The city commu- 
nity was the real world of the ancient Greek. His sense of duty 
and obligation was bounded by the walls of his native city, 
with just the slightest feeling of obligation to all others of his 
own race and religion. Towards those of a different race and 
language he felt no duties imposed by either law or morals. 
He called all such Barbarians — " unintelligible folk;" and their 
cities might be plundered, the men slain, and the women and 
children sold into slavery, without any violation of his sense of 
right and justice. 

Among a people entertaining such views respecting foreign- 
ers, we should hardly look for the virtue of hospitality extend- 
ing its helpful courtesies to those of an alien race or faith. 
Yet the Greeks were a hospitable people. This virtue was 
fostered through the following circumstances. There were no 
public inns in those times, hence a sort of gentle necessity 
forced to the entertainment of wayfarers. The hospitality ac- 



206 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

corded was the same free and impulsive welcome that the Arab 
sheik of to-day extends to the traveller whom chance brings to 
his tent. The belief, too, that the gods sometimes visited the 
earth in the guise of men also prompted, in early times, to 
the kindly reception of strangers, since thereby angels might 
haply be entertained unawares. The very best the house af- 
forded was set before the wayfarer, and not till he had re- 
freshed himself was he asked as to his journey and its object. 
When thus by chance a person, even though of another race, 
became the guest of a Greek, this circumstance made him, as 
it were, a kinsman, and henceforth a new relation subsisted 
between those thus casually brought together. One seeking a 
favor of another might claim that their ancestors had broken 
bread together, and the appeal was sacred, and seldom made 
in vain. 

At Athens there was an officer called proxene, whose duty it 
was to entertain strangers in behalf of the city. 

The Suppliant. — Him who hardened his heart against the 
appeal of a suppliant the Furies pursued with undying ven- 
geance. But only through certain formalities could one avail 
himself of the rights of a suppliant. Should one, upon the 
commission of a crime, flee to the temple, he became a suppli- 
ant of the god to whose altar he clung, and to harm him there 
was a most awful desecration of the shrine. The gods pun- 
ished with dreadful severity such impiety, and an inexpiable 
curse rested upon the house of the offender. 

To sit or kneel at the hearth of an enemy was a most solemn 
form of supplication. When Themistocles, fleeing his country, 
sought an asylum in Epirus with his former enemy, King Ad- 
metus, the queen of the latter, pitying the great man's misfort- 
unes, secured for him a kindly reception by seating him at the 
palace hearth, and placing in his arms the little prince, the son 
of Admetus — a very solemn and sacred form of appeal among 
that people. An olive branch borne in the hand was still an- 



RELIGION OF THE GREEKS. 207 

other form of supplication, which rendered sacred and inviolable 
the person of him who thus appealed for clemency. 

Humanity of the Greeks. — In the Heroic Age, the life of an 
enemy was never spared, unless for the object of securing a 
ransom or for servitude. A prisoner was considered the abso- 
lute property of his captor, who could put him to death, sell 
him into slavery, or yield him up for a ransom. Usually upon 
the capture of a city the men were slain, and the women and 
children sold into slavery. But these things do not necessarily 
evince an essentially cruel or degraded disposition ; they sim- 
ply snow that the Greeks, while so far surpassing all their con- 
temporaries in art, science, and philosophy, did not, in the mat- 
ter of humanity and morals, rise above the low standard of 
feelings and sentiments that characterized their age. They, 
however, respected the body too much to subject it to those 
terrible mutilations which we have seen were so common 
among the Asiatics — the Babylonians, Assyrians, and Persians. 

And mild and humane were the Greeks as compared with the 
rude and unfeeling Romans. The different character of their 
games and amusements attests this. The cruel gladiatorial 
contests never became, even after the Roman conquest, popu- 
lar among the Hellenes. When it was proposed to introduce 
these shows at Athens, a patriotic Athenian vehemently de- 
nounced the innovation : " First throw down," said he, " the 
altars erected above a thousand years ago by our ancestors to 
Mercy." 



203 ANCIENT HISTORY. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE, SCULPTURE, AND PAINTING. 

Pelasgian Architecture. — The term Pelasgian is applied to 
various structures of massive masonry — walls, tombs, and sub- 
terranean aqueducts — found in different parts of Greece, Italy, 
and Asia Minor. The origin of these works was a mystery to 
the earliest Hellenes, who ascribed them to the giant Cyclops; 
hence the name Cyclopean which also attaches to them. These 
works exhibit three well-defined stages of development. In the 
earliest and rudest structures the stones are gigantic in size 
and untouched by the chisel ; in the next oldest the stones 
are worked into irregular polygonal blocks ; while in the latest 
the blocks are cut into rectangular shapes and laid in regular 
courses. The walls of the old citadels or castles of several 
Grecian cities exhibit specimens of this primitive architecture. 
The celebrated Treasury of Atreus, a subterranean vaulted 
structure (perhaps tomb) at Mycenae, is a noted example of the 
latest form of Pelasgian art. 

Grecian Temples. — The first homes of the gods were, like the 
primitive abodes of men, simply such as nature afforded. 
Among the Egyptians, caves were probably the earliest tem- 
ples ; among the Greeks, the statues of the gods were first 
placed beneath the shelter of a tree, or within its hollow trunk. 
After a time a building, rudely constructed of the trunks of 
trees, and shaped like the habitation of men, marked the first 
step in advance. Then stone took the place of the wooden 
frame. With the introduction of a durable material, the artist 
was encouraged to expend more labor and care upon his work. 



GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE, SCULPTURE, AND PAINTING. 20Q 

Thus architecture began to make rapid strides, and by the 
century following the age of Solon at Athens there were many 
beautiful temples in different parts of the Hellenic world. 

Orders of Architecture.— Before speaking of the most noted 
temples of Hellas, we must first name the three styles, or orders, 
of Grecian architecture. These are the Doric, the Ionic, and 
the Corinthian. They are distinguished from one another 
chiefly by differences in the proportions and ornamentation 
of the columns. The Doric column is without a base, and has 
a simple and massive capital ; the Ionic is characterized by 
the spiral volutes of the capital ; the Corinthian order is dis- 
tinguished by its rich capital, formed of acanthus leaves. It is 
said that this form was suggested to the artist Callimachus by 
the pretty picture 'presented by a basket surrounded by the 
leaves of an acanthus plant upon which it had been set by ac- 
cident. The entire building was made to harmonize with the 
supporting columns. The characteristics of the several orders 
are well portrayed by the terms we use when we speak of the 
"stern" Doric, the "graceful" Ionic, and the "ornate" Co- 
rinthian. 

Temple of Diana at Ephesus. — The Temple of Diana at Ephe- 
sus was one of the oldest, as well as one of the most famous, 
of the sacred edifices of the Greeks. It was commenced about 
the beginning of the sixth century B.C., and was two hundred 
and twenty years in building. It was known far and wide as 
one of the Seven Wonders of the world. Crcesus gave liberally 
of his wealth to ornament the shrine. It was decorated with 
one hundred and twenty-seven Ionic columns, each, according 
to Pliny, the gift of a king. In 356 b.c, on the same night, it 
is said, that Alexander was born, an ambitious youth named 
Herostratus fired the building, simply to immortalize his name. 
The roof of the structure was of cedar, and this, probably, was 
the only part destroyed. It was restored with even greater 

10* 



2IO ANCIENT HISTORY. 

splendor than at first. Alexander coveted the honor of re- 
building the temple, and proposed to the Ephesians to do so, 
provided he should be allowed to inscribe his name upon it. 
The Ephesians gracefully rejected the proposal by replying that 
it was not right for one deity to erect a temple to another. 
Alexander was obliged to content himself with placing within 
the shrine his own portrait by Apelles — a piece of work which 
cost $300,000. The value of the gifts to the temple was be- 
yond all calculation: kings and states vied with one another 
in splendid donations. Painters and sculptors were eager to 
have their masterpieces assigned a place within its walls, so that 
it became a great national gallery of paintings and statuary. 

So inviolable was the sanctity of the temple that in times of 
tumult and danger property and treasures were carried to it as 
a safe repository. But the riches of the sanctuary proved too 
great a temptation to the Roman emperor Nero. He risked 
incurring the anger of the great Diana, and robbed the temple 
of many statues and a vast amount of gold. Later, the bar- 
barian Goths enriched themselves with the spoils of the shrine. 
The temple itself fared but little better than the treasures it 
guarded. Some of the famous jasper columns were, by order 
of the emperor Justinian, carried to Byzantium, and now up- 
hold the dome of St. Sophia, once the most noted church, now 
the most famous mosque, in all the East. Some of the columns 
were also taken to Italy and built into Christian churches there. 

The Delphian Temple.— The first temple erected at Delphi 
over the spot whence issued the mysterious vapors was a rude 
wooden structure. In the year 548 B.C., the temple then stand- 
ing was destroyed by fire. All the cities and states of Hellas 
contributed to its rebuilding. Even the king of Egypt, Amasis, 
sent a munificent gift. More than half a million of dollars was 
collected; for the temple was to exceed in magnificence any- 
thing the world had yet seen. The Alkemeonidae, an influen- 
tial family that had been exiled from Athens, contracted with 



GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE, SCULPTURE, AND PAINTING. 2TI 

the Amphictyons to erect the building. They performed the 
work in the most honorable manner, even going so far beyond 
the terms of the contract as to use Parian marble where only 
rough stone was specified. 

The structure was impressive both in its colossal size and 
the massive simplicity that characterizes the Doric style of 
architecture. It was crowded with the spoils of many battle- 
fields, with the rich gifts of kings, and with rare works of art. 
Like the temple at Ephesus, the Delphian shrine, after remain- 
ing for many years secure through the awe and reverence 
which its oracle inspired, suffered frequent spoliation. The 
greed of conquerors overcame all religious scruples. The Pho- 
cians robbed the temple of more than $10,000,000 of treasure; 
and Nero plundered it of five hundred bronze images. But 
Constantine was the Nebuchadnezzar who bore off the sacred 
vessels and many statues as trophies to his new capital then 
rising on the Hellespont. 

The Athenian Acropolis and the Parthenon. — In the history 
of art there is no other spot in the world possessed of such in- 
terest as the flat-topped rock, already described, which consti- 
tuted the Athenian Acropolis. We have seen that in early 
times the eminence was used as a stronghold. But by the fifth 
century B.C. the city had slipped down upon the plain, and the 
summit of the rock was consecrated to the temples and the 
worship of the gods. During the period of Athenian suprem- 
acy, especially in the Periclean Age, Hellenic genius and piety 
adorned this spot with temples and statues which all the world 
has pronounced to be faultless specimens of beauty and taste. 

The most celebrated of the buildings upon the # Acropolis 
was the Parthenon, the " Residence of the virgin-goddess 
Minerva." This is considered the finest specimen of Greek 
art. It was built in the Doric order, of marble from the neigh- 
boring Pentelicus. After standing for more than two thousand 
years, and having served successively as a Pagan temple, a Chris- 



212 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

tian church, and a Mohammedan mosque, it finally was made 
to serve as a Turkish powder-magazine, in a war with the Vene- 
tians, in 1687. During the progress of this contest a bomb 
fired the magazine, and more than half of this' masterpiece of 
ancient art was shivered into fragments. The front is still 
quite perfect, and is the most prominent feature of the Acrop- 
olis at the present time. 

The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. — This structure was an- 
other of the Seven Wonders of the World. It was a monumen- 
tal tomb designed to preserve the memory of Mausolus, king 
of Caria, who died 352 b.c. Its erection was prompted by the 
love and grief of his wife Artemisia. The combined genius of 
the most noted artists of the age executed the wish of the queen. 
From a base about one hundred feet square the monument 
rose to a height of one hundred and forty feet. Its sides were 
decorated with a multitude of statues and figures in relief; 
while surmounting the monument was the statue of Mausolus, 
standing in a marble chariot drawn by four horses. 

The only remains of the Mausoleum are some fragments of 
sculpture preserved in the British Museum. These assure us 
that the admiration of the ancients was not accorded to this 
work without sufficient reason. It is the traditions of this beau- 
tiful structure that have given the world a name for all magnifi- 
cent monuments raised to perpetuate the memory of the dead. 

Grecian Sculptm-e and Painting. 

Progress in the Art of Sculpture. —The subjects of the Gre- 
cian artists were usually taken from the sacred myths and 
legends. ♦Wood was the material first employed. About the 
eighth century B.C. bronze and marble were generally substi- 
tuted for the less durable material. With this change sculpt- 
ure began to make rapid progress. Another circumstance 
aided the development of the art. It became usual to com- 
memorate victories at the national games by statues of the 



GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE, SCULPTURE, AND PAINTING. 213 

victor. Now, in representing the figures of the gods, it was 
thought impious to change a single line or lineament of the 
conventional form ; and thus a certain Egyptian rigidity was 
imparted to all the productions of the artist. Any change sub- 
jected him to the charge of sacrilege. But in the representa- 
tion of the forms of mere men, the sculptor was bound by no 
conventionalism, but was free to exercise his skill and genius 
in handling his subject. Progress and improvement now be- 
came possible. 

As the sacred buildings increased in number and costliness, 
the services of the artist were called into requisition for their 
adornment. At first the temple held only the statue of the 
god ; but after a time it became, as we have already seen, a 
sort of national museum — a repository of the artistic treasures 
of the state. The entablature, the pediment, the intercolumnia- 
tions of the buildings, and every niche of the interior of the 
shrine, as well as the surrounding grounds and groves, were 
peopled with statues and groups of figures, executed by the 
most renowned artists, and representing the national deities, 
the legendary heroes, victors at the public games, or incidents 
in the life of the state in which piety saw the special interposi- 
tion of the god in whose honor the shrine had been reared. 

Phidias. — Among all the great sculptors of antiquity, Phid- 
ias stands pre-eminent. He was an Athenian, and was born 
about 488 B.C. He delighted in the beautiful myths and leg- 
ends of the Heroic Age, and from these he drew subjects for 
his art. Being an architect as well as sculptor, his patron 
Pericles gave into his hands the superintendence of those 
magnificent buildings with which he persuaded the Athenians 
to adorn their city. To his genius we owe the faultless per- 
fection of the Parthenon. 

The most celebrated of his sculptures were the statue of 
Athene within the Parthenon, and that of Olympian Jove in 
the temple at Olympia. The statue of Athene was of colossal 



214 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

size, being about forty feet in height, and was constructed of 
ivory and gold, the drapery being of the latter material. In 
one hand the goddess brandished a spear, while the other held 
aloft an ivory statue of Victory, itself a masterpiece. On her 
feet were golden sandals. 

The statue of Olympian Jove was also of ivory and gold. It 
was sixty feet high, and represented the god seated on his 
throne. The hair, beard, and drapery were of gold. The eyes 
were brilliant stones. Gems of great value decked the throne, 
and figures of exquisite design were sculptured on the golden 
robe. The colossal proportions of this wonderful work, as well 
as the lofty yet benign aspect of the countenance, harmonized 
well with the popular conception of the majesty and grace of 
the " father of gods and men." It was thought a great misfort- 
une to die without having seen the Olympian Zeus. # 

Phidias also executed other works in both bronze and mar- 
ble. He met an unworthy fate. Upon the famous shield at 
the feet of the statue of Athene in the Parthenon, among the 
figures in the representation of a battle between the Athenians 
and the Amazons, Phidias introduced a portrait of himself and 
also of his patron Pericles. That of himself was the figure of 
a "bald old man " just in the act of hurling a huge rock. The 
enemies of the artist, prompted by jealousy, caused him to be 
prosecuted for his presumption, which was considered an act 
of sacrilege. He died in prison. 

Praxiteles. — This artist stands next to Phidias as one of the 

* " Phidias avowed that he took his idea from the representation which 
Homer gives in the first book of the * Iliad ' in the passage thus translated by 
Pope : 

' He spake, and awful bends his sable brow, 
Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod, 
The stamp of fate and sanction of the god. 
High heaven with reverence the dread signal took, 
And all Olympus to the centre shook.' " 

Bulfmch's " Age of Fable," p. 404. 



GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE, SCULPTURE, AND PAINTING. 215 

most eminent of Greek sculptors. His works we-re executed 
during the fourth century B.C. Among his chief pieces may be 
mentioned the " Cnidian Venus," the " Faun," " Cupid," and 
"Apollo." The first of these, which stood in the Temple of 
Venus at Cnidus, was regarded by the ancients as the most 
perfect embodiment of the goddess of beauty. Long pilgrim- 
ages were made from distant countries to Cnidus for the sake 
of looking upon the famous statue. Many copies were set up 
in different cities. About a century ago, excavations at Rome 
brought to light a beautiful statue, supposed to be a copy of 
the original Cnidian Venus, by Cleomenes, who lived during 
the first or second century B.C. This is the famous Venus de' 
Medici, copies of which are in all our homes. The name 
comes from the circumstance of the statue having been kept 
for some time after its discovery in the palace of the Medici 
at Rome. 

Lysippus. — This artist is renowned for his works in bronze. 
He lived about 325 B.C. His statues were in great demand. 
More than six hundred pieces of his work were to be counted 
in the different cities of Hellas. Many of these were of colos- 
sal size. Alexander gave the artist many orders for statues of 
himself, and also of the heroes that fell in his campaigns. 

Chares and the Rhodian Colossus.— Lysippus, like all men of 
great genius in any art or science, had many disciples and left 
many imitators. The most noted of his pupils was Chares, who 
gave the world the celebrated Colossus at Rhodes. This was 
another of the Seven Wonders of the World. Its height was 
over one hundred feet, and a man could barely encircle with 
his arms the thumb of the statue. The expense of its erection 
($300,000) was met by the sale of spoils obtained by the Rho- 
dians in war. After standing little more than a half-century, 
it was overthrown by an earthquake. For nine hundred years 
the Colossus then lay, like a Homeric god, prone upon the 



2l6 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

ground. Finally, the Arabs, having overrun this part of the 
Orient (a.d. 672), appropriated the statue, and thriftily sold it 
to a Jewish merchant. It is said that it required a train of 
nine hundred camels to bear away the brass. 

This gigantic piece of statuary was not a solitary one at 
Rhodes ; for that city was, next after Athens, the great art cen- 
tre of the Grecian world. Its streets and gardens and public 
edifices were literally crowded with statues. Hundreds met 
the eye on every hand. The island became the favorite re- 
sort of artists, and the various schools there founded acquired 
a wide renown. Very many of the most prized works of Gre- 
cian art in our modern museums were executed by members 
of these Rhodian schools. The " Laocoon Group," found 
at Rome in f i5o6, and now in the Museum of the Vatican, is 
generally thought to be the work of three Rhodian sculptors — 
Agesander, Athenodorus, and Polydorus. The order for the 
work was probably given by the Roman emperor Titus 
(a.d. 40-81), as the group adorned the baths at Rome which 
bore his name. 

Apelles. — This artist was such a master of the art of paint- 
ing, and carried it to such a state of perfection, that the ancient 
writers spoke of it as the "art of Apelles." His most famous 
painting was a representation of Venus just at the moment the 
goddess is rising from the sea-foam. Centuries after the death 
of Apelles this painting was carried off to Italy by the Roman 
conquerors, and for a time adorned a temple at Rome erected 
in honor of Julius Caesar. 

Two well-worn stories illustrative of the estimation in which 
he was held by his contemporaries are told of Apelles. Enter- 
ing one clay the studio of the artist Protogenes, and finding him 
absent, instead of leaving his name he drew, with his own inim- 
itable grace, a single line upon a canvas, and then withdrew. 
When Protogenes returned, and his eye caught the line, he ex- 
claimed that no hand but Apelles's ever drew such a stroke. 



GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE, SCULPTURE, AND PAINTING. 21 7 

But in attempting to imitate it he perceived that he had him- 
self surpassed it; and, with a natural pride in his success, he 
instructed his servant, upon the return of the stranger, to direct 
his attention to the line. Calling a second time, Apelles was 
shown what his rival had done. Thereupon he drew a third 
line that far surpassed either of the other two. Upon behold- 
ing it, Protogenes rushed forth into the city in search of Apelles, 
for whom he ever after evinced the warmest friendship, com- 
bined with the greatest admiration. 

The second tale is told respecting a contest between Apelles 
and some rival artists, in which horses were the objects repre- 
sented. Perceiving that the judges were unfriendly to him 
and partial, Apelles insisted that less prejudiced judges should 
pronounce upon the merit of the respective pieces, demanding, 
at the same time, that they be shown to some horses that were 
near. When brought before the pictures of his rival, the horses 
exhibited no concern ; but upon being shown the painting of 
Apelles they manifested by neighing and other intelligent signs 
their instant recognition of the companions the great master 
had created. 

Polygnotus. — Polygnotus has been called the Prometheus of 
painting, because he was the first to give fire and animation to 
the expression of the countenance. Of a Polyxena (daughter 
of Priam, famous for her beauty and suffering) painted by this 
great master it was said that "she carried in her eyelids the 
whole history of the Trojan War." Polygnotus employed his 
genius in decorating the temples of Greece ; but in some in- 
stances at least, like Zeuxis, he refused compensation for his 
services. All the wonderful effects of his pictures are said to 
have been secured by the use of four colors. Cimon, at Athens, 
was the patron of the artist. "One of his paintings was pre- 
served at Rome, representing a man on a scaling-ladder, with 
a target in his hand, so contrived that it was impossible to tell 
whether he was going upward or descending." 



2l8 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Zeuxis and Parrhasius.— These great artists lived and paint- 
ed about 400 B.C. A favorite and familiar story preserves their 
names as companions, and commemorates their rival genius. 
Zeuxis, such is the story, painted a cluster of grapes which so 
closely imitated the real fruit that the birds pecked at them. 
His rival, for his piece, painted a curtain. Zeuxis asked Par- 
rhasius to draw aside the veil and exhibit his picture. " I con- 
fess I am surpassed," generously admitted Zeuxis to his rival. 
" I deceived birds, but you have deceived the eyes of an ex- 
perienced artist." 

Zeuxis executed orders for paintings for sacred buildings in 
Greece and Italy, for his fame was not confined to a single 
land. In his latter years he refused all remuneration for his 
pieces, esteeming: them bevond price in money. A very im- 
proDable story is told of his having " died with laughter at a 
picture of an old woman which he himself had painted." 



GREEK LITERATURE. 210 



CHAPTER XXII. 

GREEK LITERATURE. 

In literature the Greeks far surpassed every other people 
of antiquity. The degree of excellence attained by them in 
poetry, in oratory, and in history has scarcely been surpassed 
by any modern people or race. Here, as in art, they are still 
the teachers of the world. 

Homer and the "Iliad." — So remote is the age in which Ho- 
mer is said to have lived, and so confused are the traditions of 
his life, that many have doubted it ever there were a Homer. 
Such critics teach that the poems which bear his name were 
really the work of many hands. But the recent wonderful dis- 
coveries of Dr. Schliemann at Trov and Mycenae, although fur- 
nishing little or no direct and positive evidence on this point, 
still have assured us that the events commemorated by the 
Homeric poems had, doubtless, a solid basis in fact; and this 
has strengthened the belief that the Homer of tradition was 
a real historical personage. 

We may believe that Homer lived about the middle of the 
ninth century B.C. — two centuries after the Trojan War. He was 
probably a native of Asia Minor, though many cities contended 
for the honor of having been his birthplace. He travelled 
widely, lost his sight, and then, like a Troubadour of the Middle 
Ages, as a wandering minstrel, sang his immortal verses to ad- 
miring listeners in the different cities of Hellas. The two great 
poems that are almost universally ascribed to him are the 
" Iliad " and the " Odyssey." The subject of the " Iliad " is 
the wrath of Achilles and the woes it brought upon the Greeks 



220 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

who pressed the siege of Troy. The "Odyssey" tells of the 
long wanderings of the hero Ulysses up and down over many 
waters while seeking his native Ithaca, after the downfall of 
Ilios. 

The first poem must be pronounced " the masterpiece of 
Greek literature, perhaps of all literatures." Before being com- 
mitted to writing, it had probably been preserved and trans- 
mitted orally for several generations. It has been translated 
into all languages, and has been read with an ever fresh inter- 
est by generation after generation for nearly three thousand 
years. Alexander slept with a copy beneath his pillow — a 
copy prepared especially for him by his preceptor Aristotle, 
and called the "casket edition," from the jewelled box in which 
he kept it. We preserve it quite as sacredly in all our courses 
of classical study. 

The age in which the poem was written has been called the 
Childhood of the World. The work is characterized by the 
freshness and vitality of youth. It exerted an incalculable in- 
fluence upon the literary and religious life of the Hellenic race. 
It has made warriors as well as poets, for many of its passages 
are instinct with the martial spirit. It incited the military am- 
bition of Alexander, of Hannibal, and of Caesar ; it inspired 
Virgil, Dante, and Milton. All epic writers have taken lessons 
of the blind master. 

Hesiod and Pindar. — Hesiod, who lived two or three centuries 
after Homer, was the poet of nature. His two chief poems are 
"Works and Days" and "Theogony." Pindar was the great- 
est of lyric poets. He was born at Thebes 522 B.C., but spent 
most of his time in the cities of Magna Grascia. Such was the 
reverence in which his memory was held that when Alexander, 
two hundred years after Pindar's time, levelled the city of 
Thebes to the ground on account of a revolt, the house of the 
poet was spared, and left standing amid the general ruin. The 
greater number of Pindar's poems were inspired by the scenes 



GREEK LITERATURE. 221 

of the national festivals. They describe in lofty strains the 
splendors of the Olympian chariot-races, or the glory of the 
victors at the Isthmian or Pythian games. 

In connection with Pindar must be mentioned the names of 
Alcaeus, Sappho, and Anacreon, who stand next after Pindar in 
the list of the great lyric poets of Greece. The last was con- 
temporary with the Theban poet, while Alcaeus and Sappho 
sang one or two centuries before his day. No higher praise of 
Alcaeus is needed than mention of the fact that the Italian Hor- 
ace was so pleased with his verses that he borrowed sometimes 
entire odes from the Grecian bard. Respecting the poetess 
Sappho the Greeks told many romantic but probably mythical 
tales. Although her fame endures, her poetry, save an ode or 
two, has perished. Anacreon sang so voluptuously of love and 
wine and festivity that the term Anacreontic has come to char- 
acterize all poetry that is over-redolent of these themes. 

The Greek Drama and Dramatists.— The Greeks loved the 
drama. They would sit in the theatre under the open sky the 
entire day through, listening to piece after piece composed by 
their favorite poets. Large appropriations were made by the 
State to defray the expenses of the choruses. A writer often 
became an actor and assisted in the presentation of his own 
works. 

The great dramatists wrote during the splendid period which 
followed the victories of the Persian War, when the intellectual 
life of all Hellas, and especially that of Athens, was strung to 
the highest tension. This lent power and intensity to all the 
productions of the time. There are three great names in Greek 
tragedy — ^Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Of this famous 
trio, it is to ^Eschvlus, perhaps, that we should accord the 
crown of pre-eminence. Yet they all portrayed with a power 
and genius never surpassed the drama of human life. 

./Eschylus was more than Shakespearian in the gloom and 
intensity of his tragedies. He knew how to touch the hearts of 



2 22 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

the generation that had won the victories of the Persian War ; 
for he had fought with honor at Marathon, Salamis, and Plateea. 
But it was on a very different arena that he was destined to 
win his most enduring fame. Eleven times did he carry oft* 
the prize in tragic composition. The Athenians called him the 
"Father of Tragedy." " Prometheus Bound" is one of his chief 
works. In punishment for having stolen fire from heaven and 
given it to men, Prometheus is chained by Zeus to a lonely 
cliff on the Scythian shores of the Euxine, and an eagle is 
sent to feed upon his liver, which each night grows as much 
as torn away during the day. The poet is painting the tragedy 
and mystery of life. " It is strength and decision of character 
struggling against injustice and adversity." 

Foremost among all the Grecian writers of comedy must be 
placed Aristophanes (about 450-380 B.C.). Four of his most 
noted works are the " Clouds," the " Knights," the "Birds," and 
the " Wasps." In the comedy of the " Clouds " are ridiculed 
the speculations of Socrates. The marked peculiarities of the 
philosopher, and the well-known subtle character of many of 
his abstractions, gave point to the thrusts of the play. The 
aim of the "Knights" was the punishment and ruin of Cleon, 
one of the most conceited and insolent of the demagogues of 
Athens. The play of the " Birds " turned into ridicule, with the 
object of discouraging the measures, certain political designs 
of the Athenians in the prosecution of which the poet saw pub- 
lic loss or danger. In the "Wasps" the poet satirizes those 
persons, a numerous class at Athens, who were forever engaged 
in litigation. 
• But Aristophanes was something more than a master of 
mere mirth-provoking satire and ridicule : along with his ex- 
quisite sense of the humorous he possessed a nature most 
delicately sensitive to the finer emotions. Many of the cho- 
ruses of his pieces are inexpressibly tender and beautiful. 



GREEK LITERATURE. 223 

History and Historians. 
Poetry is the first form of literary expression among all peo- 
ples. So we must not be surprised to find that it was not until 
several centuries after the composition of the Homeric poems 
—that is, about the sixth century B.C.— that prose-writing ap- 
peared among the Greeks. Historical composition was then 
first cultivated. We can speak briefly of only three historians 
—Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon— whose names were 
cherished among the ancients, and whose writings are highly 
valued and carefully studied by ourselves. 

Herodotus.— Herodotus, born 484 B.C. at Halicarnassus, in 
Asia Minor, is called the " Father of History." He travelled 
over much of the then known world ; visited Italy, Egypt, and 
Babylonia; and describes as an eye-witness, with a never-fail- 
ing vivacity and freshness, the wonders of the different lands 
he had seen. Herodotus lived in a story-telling age, and he is 
himself an inimitable story-teller. To him we are indebted for 
a large part of the tales of antiquity — stories of men and events 
which we never tire of repeating. He was over - credulous, 
and was often imposed upon by his guides in Egypt and at 
Babylon ; but he describes with great care and accuracy what 
he himself saw. He wrote a narrative of the Persian War, and 
in the pictures which he draws we see vividly contrasted, as in 
no other writings, the East and the West, Persian and Grecian 
character and life. 

Thucydides. — Thucydides, though not so popular, was a much 
more philosophical historian than Herodotus. He was born 
near Athens, 471 B.C. A pretty story is told of his youth, 
which must be repeated, though critics have pronounced it fab- 
ulous. The tale is that Thucydides, when only fifteen, was 
taken by his father to hear Herodotus recite his history at the 
Olympian games, and that the reading and the accompanying 



224 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

applause caused the boy to shed tears and to resolve to be- 
come an historian. 

Thucydides was engaged in military service during the first 
years of the Peloponnesian War ; but, on account of his being 
unfortunate in the conduct of affairs in Thrace, the Athenians 
very unjustly sent him into an exile of twenty years. It is to 
this circumstance that we are indebted for his invaluable " His- 
tory of the War between the Peloponnesians and the Atheni- 
ans." He died before the task was completed. The work is 
considered a model of historical writing. In fairness, truthful- 
ness, clearness, and philosophical insight, Thucydides has never 
been surpassed as a narrator and interpreter of events. De- 
mosthenes read and re-read his writings to improve his own 
style ; and the greatest orators and historians of modern times 
have been equally diligent students of the works ol the great 
Athenian. 

Xenophon (445-355 B.C.). — Xenophon was an Athenian, and 
is known both as a general and a writer. The works that ren- 
der his name so familiar are his "Anabasis," a simple yet 
thrilling narrative of the famous retreat of the Ten Thousand 
Greeks ; and his " Memorabilia," or Recollections of Socrates. 
This work by his devoted yet by no means brilliant pupil is 
the most faithful portraiture that we possess of that famous 
philosopher. 

Oratory. 

Influence of the Public Assembly. — The art of oratory among 
the Greeks was fostered and developed by the democratic 
character of their institutions. In the public assemblies all 
questions that concerned the State were discussed and decided. 
The debates, as we have seen, were open to all. The gift of 
eloquence gained for its possessor a sure pre-eminence and 
conferred a certain leadership. Hence the attention bestowed 
upon public speaking, and the high degree of perfection at- 



GREEK LITERATURE. 225 

tained by the Greeks in the difficult art of persuasion. " It was 

the prevalence of the habit of public speaking,'' says Grote, 
" that was one of the principal causes of the intellectual emi- 
nence of the nation generally." 

Themistoeles and Pericles. — We have already become ac- 
quainted with Themistoeles and Pericles as statesmen and 
leaders of Athenian affairs during the most stirring period of 
Athens's history. They both were also great orators, and to 
that fact were largely, if not chiefly, indebted for their power 
and influence. Thucydides has preserved the oration delivered 
by Pericles in commemoration of those who fell in the first 
year of the Peloponnesian War. This has been pronounced 
one of the finest productions of antiquity. The language of the 
address as we have it is the historian's, but the sentiments are 
doubtless those of the great statesman. It was the habit of 
Thucydides to put speeches into the mouths of his characters. 

Demosthenes and iEschines. — It has been the fortune of 
Demosthenes to have his name become throughout the world 
the synonym of eloquence. The labors and struggles by which, 
according to tradition, he achieved excellence in his art are 
held up anew to each generation of youth as guides of the path 
to success. His first address before the public assembly was 
a complete failure, owing to defects of voice and manner. 
With indomitable will he set himself to the task of correcting 
these. He shut himself up in a cave, and gave himself to the 
diligent study of Thucydides. That he might not be tempted 
to spend his time in society, he rendered his appearance ridicu- 
lous by shaving one side of his head. To correct a stammer- 
ing utterance, he spoke with pebbles in his mouth, and broke 
himself of an ungainly habit of shrugging his shoulders by 
speaking beneath a suspended sword. To accustom himself 
to the tumult and interruptions of the public assembly, he de- 
claimed upon the noisiest sea-shore. 

11 



226 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

These are some of the many stories told of the world's great- 
est orator. There is doubtless this much truth iu them at 
least— that Demosthenes attained success, in spite of great 
discouragements, by persevering and laborious effort. More 
than sixty of his orations have been preserved. " Of all hu- 
man productions," says Hume, "they present to us the models 
which approach the nearest to perfection." 

Demosthenes lived at just the time (he was born in the year 
385 B.C.) when Philip of Macedon was pursuing his crafty and 
ambitious policy of aggression towards the Grecian states. 
Rightly interpreting the designs of the king, Demosthenes 
strove to awaken the Athenians to a sense of their danger. 
The orations (called " Philippics ") which he delivered against 
Philip are eminent specimens of hot and vehement invective. 

The latter part of the life of Demosthenes is intertwined 
with that of another and rival Athenian orator, ^Eschines. For 
his services to the State, the Athenians proposed to award to 
Demosthenes a crown of gold. ^Eschines opposed this. All 
Athens and strangers from far and near gathered in the Agora, 
to hear the rival orators ; for every matter at Athens was de- 
cided by a great debate. Demosthenes made the grandest 
effort of his life. His address, known as the " Oration on the 
Crown," has been declared to be " the most polished and pow- 
erful effort of human oratory." ^Eschines was completely 
crushed, and was sent into exile, and became a teacher of ora- 
tory at Rhodes. 

He is said to have once gathered his disciples about him, and 
to have read to them Demosthenes's oration that had proved 
so fatal to him. Carried away by the torrent of its eloquence, 
his pupils, unable to restrain their enthusiasm, burst into ap- 
plause. " Ah !" said ^Eschines, who seemed to find solace in 
the fact that his defeat had been at the hands of so worthy an 
antagonist, " what would you have said had you heard the 
wild beast himself roaring it out?" 

After a time the enemies of Demosthenes came into power at 



GREEK LITERATURE. 227 

Athens, and the orator and patriot was forced to flee from 
the city. He took refuge upon an island just off the coast of 
Peloponnesus; but being still haunted by the King of Mace- 
don — for Macedonia's supremacy throughout Greece was at 
this time complete — he put an end to his life by means of 
poison (322 b.c). 



2 28 ANCIENT HISTORY. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE. 

Relation of Mythology to Philosophy. — Philosophy has been 
very aptly defined as mythology grown old and wise. Grecian 
mythology did not become sufficiently wise to be called philos- 
ophy until the sixth century B.C. About that time the Greeks 
began to think and to inquire in a philosophical manner re- 
specting the phenomena and laws of the universe of mind and 
matter. Having once entered upon this path, the Greek race 
reached, almost at a bound, the loftiest heights of philosophical 
speculation. 

The Seven Sages. — About the sixth century b.c. there lived 
and taught in different parts of Hellas many philosophers of 
great originality and influence. Among these were seven men, 
called the " Seven Sages," who held the place of pre-eminence. 
As in the case of the Seven Wonders of the World, ancient 
writers were not always agreed as to what names should be 
accorded the honor of enrollment in the sacred number. 
Thales, Solon, Periander, Cleobulus, Chilo, Bias, and Pittacus 
are, however, usually reckoned as the Seven Wise Men. To 
them belongs the distinction of having first aroused the Greek 
intellect to philosophical thought. The wise sayings attributed 
to them are beyond number. 

Pythagoras. — This great philosopher was born on the island 
of Samos, some time during the sixth century B.C. Twenty-five 
years of his early life were spent in Egypt, where, being ad- 
mitted, through the favor and influence of King Amasis, to 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE. 229 

the sacred colleges of the priests, he became versed in all the 
mysteries of the Egyptians. He returned to Greece with a 
great reputation, and finally settled at Crotona, in Italy. Here 
he gathered about him a renowned school, or society, composed 
of six hundred companions, all selected with special regard to 
their capacity to assimilate his peculiar doctrines. Like many 
another ancient philosopher, Pythagoras sought to increase the 
reverence of his disciples for himself by peculiarities of dress 
and manners. His uncut hair and beard flowed down upon 
his shoulders and over his breast. He never smiled. His 
dress was a white robe, with a golden crown. For the first 
years of their novitiate, his pupils were not allowed to look 
upon their master. They listened to his lectures from behind 
a curtain. Ipse dixit, "he himself said so," was the only argu- 
ment they must employ in debate. It is to Pythagoras that we 
are indebted for the word philosopher. Being asked of what 
Re was master, he replied that he was simply a " philosopher ;" 
that is, a "lover of wisdom." 

Pythagoras held views of the solar system that anticipated 
by 2000 years those of Copernicus and his school. He taught 
that the earth is a sphere ; and that, like the other planets, 
it revolves about a central globe of fire. From him comes 
the pretty conceit of the " music of the spheres." He imagined 
that the planets in their swift motions through the ether set it 
in vibrations, which unite in a celestial melody. Music held 
an important place in his system of philosophy. 

He taught the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, an 
idea he had doubtless brought from Egypt. Because of this 
belief the Pythagoreans were strict vegetarians, abstaining 
religiously from the use of all animal food. 

Jlsop.— The fables of ^Esop have been for ages the common 
and prized property of the world. "The Wolf and the Lamb," 
" The Dog and the Shadow," " The Fox and the Raven," have 
been the delight of the nursery ever since the genius of ^Esop 



230 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

gave them birth. Simple as they seem, they are inimitable, 
having a peculiar charm and flavor of their own. 

Little or nothing is positively known of the life of the great 
fabulist. He is supposed to have been a contemporary of 
Solon. At first a slave, his talents secured him his freedom. 
Tradition says that he was put to death by the Delphians for 
having exposed in a fable some of their faults. ^Esop was 
honored by the Athenians, who commissioned Lysippus to put 
his statue in bronze, which was, with much significance, accord- 
ed a place in front of the statues of the Seven Sages. 

Socrates. — Volumes would not contain what would be both 
instructive and interesting respecting the lives and works of 
the three great philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. 
We can, however, accord to each only a few words. Of these 
three famous teachers, Socrates (born 469 B.C.), though sur- 
passed in grasp and power of intellect by both Plato and Aris- 
totle, has the firmest hold upon the affections of the world. 

Nature, while generous to the philosopher in the gifts of soul, 
was unkind to him in the matter of his person. He was in- 
credibly homely in face, and had an awkward, shambling walk, 
so that he invited the shafts of the comic poets of his time. 
His figure is said to have been the most ungainly, and there- 
fore the most familiar, of any upon the streets of Athens. He 
loved to gather a little circle about him in the Agora or in the 
streets, and then to impart his instructions by a series of ingen- 
ious questions. His method was so peculiar to himself that it 
has received the designation of " Socratic dialogue." 

Socrates was unfortunate in his domestic relations. Xan- 
thippe, his wife, seems to have been of a practical turn of mind, 
and unable to sympathize with the abstracted ways of her 
husband. " Sometimes she threw water on him; but this only 
elicited from the mild philosopher the remark to those about 
him, ' Did I not say that Xanthippe was thundering and would 



soon rain r 



?' " 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE. 23 1 

Socrates taught the purest system of morals that the world 
had yet known, and which has been surpassed only by the pre- 
cepts of the Great Teacher. He believed in the immortality 
of the soul and in a Supreme Ruler of the universe, but some- 
times spoke slightingly of the temples and the popular deities. 
This led to his prosecution on the double charge of blasphemy 
and of corrupting the Athenian youth. He was condemned to 
drink the fatal hemlock. The night before his death he spent 
with his disciples, discoursing on the immortality of the soul. 

Plato. — Plato was a philosopher of noble birth, before whom 
in youth opened a brilliant career in the world of Greek affairs; 
but, coming under the influence of Socrates, he resolved to give 
up all his prospects in politics and devote himself to philoso- 
phy. Upon the condemnation and death of his master he 
went into voluntary exile. In many lands he gathered knowl- 
edge and met with varied experiences. He visited Sicily, 
where he was so unfortunate as to call upon himself the resent- 
ment of Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, through having worsted 
him in an argument, and also by an uncourtly plainness of 
speech. The king caused him to be sold into slavery as a 
prisoner of war. Being ransomed by a friend, he found his 
way to his native Athens, and established a school of philoso- 
phy in the Academy. Here, amid the disciples that thronged 
to his lectures, he passed the greater part of his long life — he 
died 348 B.C., at the age of eighty-one years — laboring inces- 
santly upon the great works that bear his name. 

Plato imitated in his writings Socrates's method in conversa- 
tion. The discourse is carried on by questions and answers, 
hence the term " Dialogues " that attaches to his works. He 
attributes to his master, Socrates, much of the philosophy that 
he teaches ; yet his " Dialogues " are all deeply tinged with his 
own genius and thought. The " Phaedo " is a record of the 
last conversation of Socrates with his disciples — an immortal 
argument for the immortality of the soul. In the "Republic" 



232 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Plato portrays his conception of an ideal state. He believed 
not only in a future life (post-existence), but also in pre-exist- 
ence; teaching that the ideas of reason, or our intuitions, are 
reminiscences of a past experience. Plato's doctrines have 
exerted a profound influence upon all schools of thought and 
philosophies since his day.* 

Aristotle. — As Socrates was surpassed by his pupil Plato, so 
in turn was Plato excelled by his disciple Aristotle. In him 
the philosophical genius of the Hellenic intellect reached its 
culmination. It may be doubted whether all the ages since 
his time have produced so profound and powerful an intellect 
as his. He was born in the Macedonian city of Stagira (384 
B.C.), and hence is frequently called the Stagirite. As in the 
case of Socrates, his personal appearance gave no promise of 
the philosopher. He had a small and contemptible body, the 

* In the following lines from Wordsworth we catch a glimpse of Plato's 
doctrine of pre-existence : 

" Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting ; 
The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 
Hath had elsewhere its setting, 

And cometh from afar : 
Not in entire forgetful ness, 
Nor yet in utter nakedness, 
But trailing clouds of glory, do we come 
From God, who is our home." — Ode on Immortality. 

And again : "And but for our surface and distracted lives — lived here for 
the most part in the senses — we should have never lost the consciousness 
of our descent into immortality, nor have questioned our resurrection and 
longevity. But as in descending all drink of oblivion — some more, some 
less — it happens that while all are conscious of life, by defect of memory 
our recollections are various concerning it ; those discerning most vividly 
who have drunk least of oblivion, they more easily recalling the memory of 
their past existence. Ancient of days, we hardly are persuaded to believe 
that our souls are no older than our bodies, and to date our nativity from 
our family registers, as if time and space could chronicle the periods of the 
immortal mind by its advent into the flesh and decease out of it." — Alcott's 
" Tablets," p. 203. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE. 233 

defects of which were made more noticeable by his over-scru- 
pulous care of his dress and finery. His teacher Plato, how- 
ever, recognized the genius of his pupil, and called him the 
"Mind of the school." When he missed him from the class 
he would say, " Intellect is not here to-day." He also called 
him " The Reader," because he devoured so eagerly the works 
of the masters. 

After studying for twenty years in the school of Plato, Aris- 
totle became the preceptor of Alexander the Great. When 
Philip invited him to become the tutor of his son, he gracefully 
complimented the philosopher by saying in his letter that he 
was grateful to the gods that the prince was born in the same 
age with him. The royal pupil loved his great teacher with an 
affectionate devotion. He said," I owe great love to my father 
and to my teacher Aristotle; to one for living, and to the other 
for living well." Alexander became the liberal patron of his 
tutor, and, besides giving him large sums of money, aided him 
in his scientific studies by sending him large collections of 
plants and animals, gathered on his distant expeditions. 

At Athens the great philosopher delivered his lectures while 
walking about beneath the trees and porticos of the Lyceum; 
hence the term peripatetic (from the Greek peripatein, to walk 
about) applied to his philosophy. Pfe died 322 B.C., the same 
year that marks the death of Demosthenes. 

Among the most important of the productions of his fertile 
intellect are works on rhetoric, logic, poetry, morals and poli- 
tics, physics and metaphysics. For centuries his works were 
studied and copied and commented upon by both European 
and Asiatic scholars, in the schools of Athens and Rome, of 
Alexandria and Constantinople. Until the time of Bacon in 
England, for nearly 2000 years, Aristotle ruled over the realm 
of mind with a despotic sway. All teachers and philosophers 
acknowledged him as their guide and master. 

Zeno and the Stoics.— We are now approaching the period 



234 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

when the political life of Hellas was failing, and was being fast 
overshadowed by the greatness of Rome. But the intellectual 
life of the Greek race was by no means eclipsed by the calam- 
ity that ended its political existence. For centuries after that 
event the poets, scholars, and philosophers of this intellectual 
people led a brilliant career in the schools and universities of 
the Roman world. " From the third century before Christ to 
the age of Constantine," says Eugene Lawrence, " the Greek 
philosophers filled the world around the shores of the Mediter- 
ranean with a ceaseless mental discord." 

From among all the philosophers of this long period we can 
select for brief mention only two teachers, Zeno and Epicurus, 
who are famous as founders of schools of philosophy that ex- 
erted a vast influence upon both the thought and conduct of 
many centuries. 

Zeno, founder of the celebrated school of the Stoics, lived in 
the third century before our era (362-264). He taught at Ath- 
ens in a public porch (in Greek stoa), from which circumstance 
comes the name applied to his disciples. The Stoical philos- 
ophy was the outgrowth of that of the Cynics, a sect of most 
rigid and austere morals. The typical representative of this 
sect is found in Diogenes, who lived, so the story goes, in a tub, 
and went about Athens in" daylight with a lantern in search, as 
he said, of a man. The Cynics were simply a race of pagan 
hermits : Diogenes was the Simon Stylites of the sect. Zeno 
adopted all that was good in the code of the Cynics, and, add- 
ing to this everything that he found of value in the systems of 
other philosophers, he formed therefrom his new philosophy. 
It became a favorite system of thought with certain classes of 
the Romans, and under its teachings and doctrines were nour- 
ished some of the purest and loftiest characters produced by 
the pagan world. It numbered among its representatives, in 
later times, the illustrious Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, 
and the scarcely less renowned and equally virtuous slave, 
Epictetus. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE. 235 

The Stoics inculcated virtue for the sake of itself. They be- 
lieved — and it would be very difficult to frame a better creed — 
that "man's chief business here is to do his duty." Bodily 
pain, they taught, was nothing; and they schooled themselves 
to bear with perfect composure any lot that destiny might ap- 
point. Any sign of emotion on account of calamity was con- 
sidered unmanly and unphilosophical. Thus, when told of the 
sudden death of his son, the Stoic replied, " Well, I never 
imagined that I had given life to an immortal." 

Epicurus and the Epicureans.— Opposed to the Stoics in 
every article of their faith were the Epicureans, the followers of 
Epicurus, who was a contemporary of Zeno. They denied the 
doctrine of a future existence as taught by the Stoics, and 
allowed full indulgence to every wish and passion. Their 
whole philosophy was compressed in the proverb, "Let us eat 
and drink, for to-morrow we die." 

Epicurus had many followers in Greece, and his doctrines 
were eagerly embraced by many during the later corrupt and 
licentious periods of the Roman Empire. No pure or exalted 
life could be nourished in the unwholesome atmosphere of 
such a philosophy. Epicureanism never produced a single 
great character. But it is proper to say that the followers of 
Epicurus carried his doctrines to an excess that he himself 
would have condemned. There is often more of good or of 
evil in a philosophy than its founder ever perceives. 

Science among the Greeks. 
In ancient times no single people or race excelled in all 
departments of knowledge or human endeavor. Having, then, 
seen the wonderful genius of the Greek race for art, literature, 
and philosophy, we are prepared to learn that they never evinced 
great aptitude for the more practical sciences. In art and 
literature the Greeks are still our teachers ; in science we are 
immeasurably their superiors. Still, while this is true, the con- 



236 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

tributions of the Hellenic mind to the physical sciences have 
laid us under no small obligation to them. Especially did the 
later Greeks do much good and lasting work in the mathe- 
matical sciences. 

It was not until about the beginning of the sixth century B.C. 
that the Greeks began seriously to investigate the phenomena 
of the physical world. Some of those whom we have classed 
as philosophers were also careful students of nature, and might 
be called scientists. Thales (600 B.C.) was the first to attempt 
a rational study of the facts of the physical world. Anaxagoras 
(in the Periclean Age) taught that the sun was not a god, but a 
glowing rock, as large, probably, as Peloponnesus. But he 
suffered the fate of Galileo in a later age : he was charged 
with impiety, and imprisoned. The great philosopher Aristotle 
wrote some valuable works on anatomy and natural history. 
From his time onward the sciences were pursued with much 
zeal and success. 

Euclid. — Alexandria, in Egypt, became the seat of the most 
celebrated school of mathematics of antiquity. Here, under 
Ptolemy Lagus, flourished Euclid, the great geometer, whose 
work forms the basis of the science of geometry as taught in 
our schools at the present time. Ptolemy himself was his pupil. 
The royal student, however, seems to have disliked the severe 
application required to master the problems of Euclid, and 
asked his teacher if there was not some easier way. Euclid 
replied, " There is no royal road to geometry." 

Archimedes. — In the third century B.C., Syracuse, in Sicily, 
was the home of Archimedes, the greatest mathematician that 
the Grecian world produced. He had a marvellous genius for 
figures, and investigated the abstrusest problems in geometry, 
mechanics, and the allied sciences. The range and productive- 
ness of his genius are shown by the following titles to some of 
his works: "On Bodies Floating in Fluids;" "On Centres of 
Gravity;" "On the Sphere and the Cylinder." 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE. 237 

His acquaintance with the first subject is illustrated by the 
familiar story that is told of the manner in which he detected 
the impurity of the gold in the crown of Hiero, King of Syra- 
cuse. The king, suspecting that the gold had been alloyed, 
submitted the article to Archimedes, who detected the fraud by 
means of the principle of specific gravities, which was suggested 
to him while bathing. Leaping from the bath, he ran through 
the corridors, exclaiming, "Eureka! Eureka!" — "I have 
found it ! I have found it !" 

His knowledge of the second subject and of the laws of the 
lever is indicated by the oft -quoted boast that he made to 
Hiero : "Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world." 
His elucidation of the properties of the sphere and cylinder 
were, even in his own estimation, so important that he request- 
ed that a figure of these should be placed, as the fittest memo- 
rial of his life, upon his tomb. More than one hundred years 
afterwards Cicero discovered and identified the monument by 
means of these emblems. 

During the siege of Syracuse by the Romans, Archimedes 
rendered his native city valuable service by driving off or de- 
stroying the enemy's vessels by means of ingenious and power- 
ful engines. The story of his setting fire to the Roman ships 
by means of mirrors is, after much discussion, allowed to be not 
only possible, but probable. 

Archimedes perished in the capture of the city, but in what 
way he met his death is not known with certainty. The com- 
mon story, however, that is told of the event is quite in keep- 
ing with the abstracted habit of the philosopher. It is related 
that while the enemy were sacking the city he was engaged in 
solving a mathematical problem. So absorbed was he in his 
work that, when a Roman soldier, who chanced to come upon 
him, commanded him to give himself up and accompany him, 
he either gave no heed whatever to his captor or told him to 
wait till he got through with the problem, whereupon the soldier 
killed him upon the spot. 



238 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Strabo and Ptolemy. — Among ancient Greek geographers 
two names are famous — Strabo and Claudius Ptolemy. Strabo 
was born about half a century before our era. He travelled 
over a large part of the world, and describes, as an eye-witness, 
the scenery, the productions, and the peoples of all the coun- 
tries known to the ancients. 

Claudius Ptolemy lived in Egypt about the middle of the 
second century after Christ. His great reputation is due not 
so much to his superior genius as to the fortunate circumstance 
that his vast works preserved and transmitted to later times 
almost all the knowledge of the ancient world on astronomical 
and geographical subjects. In this way it has happened that 
his name has become attached to various doctrines and views 
respecting the universe, though these may not have been, and 
probably were not, originated by him. The phrase " Ptolemaic 
system," however, links his name inseparably, whether the 
honor be fairly his or not, with that conception of the solar 
system set forth in his works, which continued to be the re- 
ceived theory from his time until Copernicus — fourteen centu- 
ries later. 



THE ROMAN KINGDOM. 



239 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE ROMAN KINGDOM. 

(753-509 B.C.) 

Divisions of Italy. — The peninsula of Italy, like that of 
Greece, divides itself into three parts — Northern, Central, and 
Southern Italy. The first comprises the great basin of the Po, 
lying between the Alps and the Apennines. In ancient times 
this part of Italy included three districts — Liguria, Gallia Cis- 
alpina, and Venetia. The first embraced the western and the 
last the eastern part of Northern Italy. Gallia Cisalpina lay 
between these two districts, occupying the finest portion of the 
valley of the Po. It received its name, which means "Gaul 
this side the Alps," from the Gallic tribes that in the sixth 
century before our era found their way over the mountains and 
settled upon these rich lands. 

The countries of Central Italy were Etruria, Latium, and 
Campania, facing the Western or Tuscan Sea; Umbria and 
Picenum, looking out over the Eastern or Adriatic Sea ; and 
Samnium and the country of the Sabines, occupying the rough 
mountain districts of the Apennines. 

Southern Italy comprised the countries of Apulia, Lucania, 
Calabria, and Bruttium. Calabria occupied the "heel," and 
Bruttium formed the "toe," of the peninsula. This part of 
Italy was, in connection with the island of Sicily, also known 
as Magna Graecia, or " Great Greece," on account of the num- 
ber and importance of the Greek cities that during the period 
of Hellenic supremacy were established in these regions. 

The large island of Sicily, lying just off the mainland on the 
south, may be regarded simply as a detached fragment of Italy, 



240 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

so intimately has its destiny been interwoven with that of the 
peninsula. In ancient times it was the meeting-place and bat- 
tle-ground of the Carthaginians, the Greeks, and the Romans. 

Early Inhabitants of Italy. — There were, in early times, four 
races in Italy — the Pelasgians, the Italians, the Etruscans, and 
the Greeks. They all probably (uncertainty still attaches to 
the ethnic relations of the Etruscans) belonged to the great 
Indo-European family of nations, and were near akin in speech, 
customs, and religion. 

The Pelasgians were the first comers, and are thought to 
have reached Italy by way of the sea, from the western coast 
of Greece. The Italians, the different tribes of which race 
seem to have entered the peninsula in successive waves from 
the north, crowded the Pelasgians southward into Calabria, and 
then, settling down, took possession of nearly all Central Italy. 
After them came the Rasennae, who, subjugating and blending 
with the Italian tribes in Etruria, took the name of Etruscans. 
They here formed a league of twelve cities, and before the rise 
of the Roman people were the most cultured of all the races 
in Italy. Numerous works of art — such as tombs, fragments 
of walls, massive dikes to keep back the sea, and long tunnels 
piercing the sides of hills to drain the lakes lying in the crater 
of extinct volcanoes — evidence the advance in civilization they 
had made at a very remote date. They were a maritime peo- 
ple, and carried on an early trade with Phoenicia and Egypt. 

Some six hundred years B.C. the Gauls came over the Alps, 
pressed the Etrurians out of Northern Italy, into which quarter 
they had extended their power, and settling in those regions, 
became the most formidable enemies of the infant republic of 
Rome. Of the establishment of the Greek cities in Southern 
Italy, we have already learned in connection with Grecian 
history. 

The Latins. — Most important of all the Italian peoples were 



THE ROMAN KINGDOM. 241 

the Latins, who dwelt in Latium, between the Tiber and the 
Liris. These people brought with them into Italy those same 
customs, manners, beliefs, and institutions — modified, of course, 
by the circumstances of their long wanderings and through 
contact with other peoples — which we have seen to have been 
the common possession of the various branches of the Aryan 
household. The unit of their social system was the family ; 
the families united, usually by the affinities of blood, to form 
clans, the households of which, clustering upon chosen spots, 
formed small villages; these again united to form, cantons, 
each of which had a central stronghold, usually some rock or 
eminence easily defended. Here " the markets were held, 
games celebrated, justice administered, and religious rites ob- 
served." There is said to have been in all Latium thirty can- 
tons, and these formed an alliance known as the Latin League. 
The city which first assumed importance and leadership among 
the cantons of this confederation was Alba Longa, the " Long 
White City," so called because its white buildings stretched for 
a great distance along the summit of a ridge. 

The Ramnes, or Romans.— Although Alba Longa at first held 
the place of pre-eminence among the Latin towns, another 
city soon acquired the position of leadership. This was Rome, 
the stronghold of the Ramnes, or Romans, located upon a low 
hill on the south bank of the Tiber, about fifteen miles from 
the sea. Rome was the Sparta of the Italian peninsula. The 
history of this famous city, whose story we are now to narrate, 
was, in many ways, strikingly parallel to that of the Lacedae- 
monian capital. The early Romans and Spartans were alike 
renowned for their martial valor and their unrelenting cruelty ; 
both quickly crushed and reduced to slavery, or to the condi- 
tion of subject allies, all the states about them ; both ever fa- 
vored government by the few as opposed to government by the 
many — upheld aristocratical as opposed to democratical institu- 
tions ; Sparta crushed her rival Athens and levelled her walls, 



242 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

and Rome drove the ploughshare over the site of her rival Car- 
thage; and, to complete the parallel, as warlike Sparta finally 
fell through the decay of the early virtues and patriotism of 
her citizens, so did Rome at last fall through the enfeebling 
and corrupting influences of a like career of conquest and rob- 
bery. 

The Beginnings of Rome. — The traditions of the Romans 
place the founding of their city in the year 753 B.C. As these 
same legends relate much besides about the Trojan ^Eneas 
and Romulus and Remus which we know to be purely myth- 
ical, we cannot be certain as to the date of the origin of the 
city. We may believe, though, that it was founded at least as 
early as the time assigned. Recent excavations have revealed 
the foundations of the old walls and two of the ancient gates. 
We thus learn that the city at first covered only the top of 
the Palatine Hill, one of a cluster of low eminences on the left 
bank of the Tiber, which were finally embraced within the lim- 
its of the growing city, and became the famed "Seven Hills of 
Rome." From the shape of its enclosing walls, the original city 
was called Roma Quadrata, " Square Rome." 

Rome's First Conquest. — The first accession to the strength 
of Rome was gained through an alliance with a Sabine city 
built upon a neighboring hill called the Quirinal. These Sa- 
bines were near kinsmen of the Latin peoples, and the two 
communities readily blended. Rome was now strong enough 
to wage successful war with the other Latin towns for the posi- 
tion of leader among them. Alba Longa, at the end of a long 
war, was captured, razed to the ground, and the inhabitants 
carried in a body to Rome, and settled on the Ccelian Mount, 
one of the Seven Hills. Rome was now without a rival among 
the Latin cities. They looked to her as their guardian, and 
under her leadership repelled the encroachments of the mari- 
time powers of Carthag*e and Magna Graecia, and beat back 



THE ROMAN KINGDOM. 243 

the invasions of the Etruscans and Italian tribes that were 
constantly pressing upon the frontiers of Latium, or carried 
their conquests into the territory of the surrounding peoples, 
and thus gradually enlarged the boundaries of the Latin 
state. 

Home Becomes a Great City. — The position of supremacy 
assumed by Rome was naturally attended by the rapid growth 
in population and importance of the little Palatine city.* The 
original walls soon became too strait for the increasing multi- 
tudes ; new ramparts were built — tradition says under the di- 
rection of the king Servius Tullius — which, with a great circuit 
of seven miles, swept around the entire cluster of the Seven 
Hills. A large tract of marshy ground between the Palatine 
and Capitoline hills was drained by means of the Cloaca Max- 
ima, the "Great Sewer," which was so admirably constructed 
that it has been preserved to the present day. It still dis- 
charges its waters through a great arch into the Tiber. The 
land thus reclaimed became the Forum, the assembling-place 
of the people. At one angle of this public square, as we would 
term it, was the Comitium, a large platform, where the assem- 
blies of the patricians were held. Standing upon this platform, 
so placed that the speaker could command with his voice both 
the plebeians in the Forum and the patricians in the Comitium, 



* Several causes have been assigned to account for the early and rapid 
growth of the power of Rome. Its situation upon the Tiber was, without 
doubt, favorable to its early development as a centre of trade and commerce; 
while its distance from the sea protected it from the depredations of the pi- 
rates which in early times swarmed in the Mediterranean and desolated the 
coast cities. But most potent of all influences in shaping the fortunes and 
character of the inhabitants of the little Palatine town was the necessity 
which they found themselves under to form some sort of social and political 
connection with the neighboring communities that held possession of the 
hills immediately about them. The early circumstances of the national life 
would thus seem to have given a certain legal and political bias to that Ro- 
man genius which was destined to give laws to the world. 



244 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

was the rostrum,* or desk, from which the Roman orators de- 
livered their addresses. This assembling-place in later times 
was enlarged and decorated with various monuments and sur- 
rounded with splendid buildings and porticos. Here more was 
said, resolved upon, and done than upon any other spot in the 
ancient world. 

The Senate-house occupied one side of the Forum ; and 
facing this on the opposite side were the Temple of Vesta and 
the palace of the king. Overlooking all from the summit of 
the Capitoline was the famous sanctuary called the Capitol, or 
the Capitoline temple, where beneath the same roof were the 
shrines of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, the three great national 
deities. 

Upon the level ground between the Aventine and the Pala- 
tine was located the Circus Maximus, the " Great Circle," where 
were celebrated the Roman games. The most famous of the 
streets of Rome was the Via Sacra, or " Sacred Way," which 
traversed the Forum and led up the Capitoline Hill to the Tem- 
ple of Jupiter. This was the street along which passed the 
triumphal processions of the Roman conquerors. 

Classes of Society. — The two important classes of the popu- 
lation of Rome during the latter part of the regal period were 
the patricians and the plebeians. The former were the de- 
scendants of the ancient Ramnes, Sabines, and Albans, and at 
first alone possessed political rights. They were proud, ex- 
clusive, and tenacious of their inherited privileges. The latter 
were made up chiefly of the inhabitants of subjected cities, and 
of refugees from various quarters that had sought an asylum at 
Rome. They were free to acquire property, and enjoyed per- 
sonal freedom, but at first had no political rights whatever. 
The greater number were petty land-owners, who held and cul- 

* " The name of rostrum was given it in the sixth century of the city, 
when it was adorned by Duillius with the brazen beaks, or rostra, of the 
Carthaginians." — Merivale. 



THE ROMAN KINGDOM. 245 

tivated the soil about the capital. A large part of the history 
of Rome for several centuries is simply the narration of the 
struggles of this class to secure an equal share with the patri- 
cians in the management of the government. 

Besides these two principal orders, there were two other 
classes — clients and slaves. The former were attached to the 
families -of the patricians, who became their patrons and pro- 
tectors. The relation of patron and client at Rome was some- 
thing like that existing between lord and vassal in the later 
feudal system of Europe. The client must follow his patron to 
war, aid in his ransom if taken prisoner, and contribute to the 
defraying of his expenses when elected to public office. The 
patron, on his part, was bound to look after the interests of his 
client and, when necessity arose, plead his cause in the courts. 
A large clientage was considered the crown and glory of a 
patrician house. 

The slaves were largely captives in war, and were in the 
hard and abject condition that characterizes that class every- 
where. Their number, small^at first, gradually increased as the 
Romans extended their conquests, till they outnumbered all the 
other classes taken together, and more than once turned upon 
their oppressors in formidable revolts that threatened the very 
existence of the Roman state. 

Early Government : King, Senate, and Popular Assembly.— 
For nearly two and a half centuries after the founding of 
Rome (from 753 to 509 B.C.), the government was an elective 
monarchy. The Roman nation, as we have already learned, 
was formed by the union of three different, though nearly allied, 
communities — the Ramnes (the Romans proper, who gave 
name to the mixed people), the Sabines, and the Albans. 
These constituted three tribes, called Ramnes, Tities, and Lu- 
ceres. Each tribe was divided into ten wards, or curiae, and 
each ward was again divided into ten houses, or gentes. The 
nation was thus nominally composed of three hundred great 



246 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

houses. These divisions, as we shall see, formed the basis of 
the political constitution. 

At the head of the nation stood the King, who was at once 
ruler of the people, commander of the army, judge and high- 
priest of the nation, with absolute power as to life and death. 

Next to the king stood the Senate, a body of three hundred 
members, the heads of the three hundred houses that made up 
the Roman state. This body had no power to enact laws : the 
duty of its members was simply to advise with the king, who 
was free to follow or disregard their suggestions. 

The Popular Assembly (co?nitia curiata) comprised the heads 
of all the families, or households, of the nation. It was this 
body that enacted the laws of the state, determined upon peace 
or war, and also confirmed the election of the king ; for upon 
the death of the monarch the power which had been delegated 
to him fell back into the hands of the people. 

The Legendary Kings.— To span the two hundred and forty- 
four years that mark the life of the Roman kingdom, the leg- 
ends of the Romans tell of the reigns of seven kings — Romu- 
lus, the founder of Rome; Numa, the lawgiver; Tullius 
Hostilius and Ancus Martius, conquerors both ; Tarquinius 
Priscus, the great builder; Servius Tullius, the reorganizer of 
the government and second founder of the state; and Tar- 
quinius Superbus, the haughty tyrant, whose oppressions led to 
the abolition by the people of the office of king. 

The traditions of the doings of these monarchs and of what 
happened to them so blend fact, fiction, and exaggeration that 
scholars have almost despaired of ever being able to separate 
the mythical from the purely historical element that they con- 
tain. We cannot be quite sure even as to the names. Re- 
specting the last two, however, some important things are 
related, the substantial historicalness of which we may rely 
upon with a fair degree of certainty; and these matters we 
shall notice in the following paragraphs. 



THE ROMAN KINGDOM. 



247 



New Constitution of Servius Tullius.— Before the close of 
the regal period the plebeian class in Rome had become very 
numerous, and were clamoring to be admitted to a share in the 
government. Tarquinius, the predecessor of Servius Tullius, 
was inclined to favor the plebeians in their demands, but, 
through the jealousy of the patricians, who guarded with the 
greatest watchfulness the privileges of their class, was able to 
secure only for the wealthy and most influential of the com- 
mons the right to seats in the Senate and participation in the 
government. 

But Servius Tullius effected a sweeping reform. He made 
property instead of birth the basis of the new constitution. The 
entire population was divided into five classes, the first of which 
included all citizens, whether patricians or plebeians, who 
owned twenty jugera (about twelve acres) of land ; the fifth and 
lowest embraced all that could show title to even two jugera. 
The army was made up of the members of the five classes ; as 
it was thought right and proper that the public defence should 
be the care of those who, on account of their possessions, were 
most interested in the maintenance of order and in the protec- 
tion of the boundaries of the state. 

The assembling-place of the military classes thus organized 
was on a large plain just outside the city walls, called the 
Campus Martius, or " Field of Mars." The meeting of these 
military orders was called the comitia centuriata, or the "assem- 
bly of hundreds." 

The reforms of Servius Tullius became the Magna Charta 
of the Roman constitution. Carrying on the contest for their 
rights under the sanction and protection of the Servian laws, 
the plebeians were at last enabled to possess themselves of all 
the privileges of the patricians, and to gain an equal share 
with them in the administration of the government. 

The Expulsion of the Kings. — The legends make Tarquin- 
ius Superbus, or Tarquin the Proud, the last king of Rome. 



248 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

He is represented as a monstrous tyrant, whose arbitrary acts 
caused both patricians and plebeians to unite and drive him 
and all his house into exile. This event occurred in the year 
509 B.C., only one year later than the expulsion of the tyrants — 
the Pisistratids — from Athens. 

So bitterly did the people hate the tyranny they had abol- 
ished that it is said they all, the nobles as well as the com- 
mons, bound themselves by most solemn oaths never again to 
tolerate a king, enacting that should any one so much as ex- 
press a wish for the restoration of the monarchy he should be 
considered a public enemy and be put to death. We shall 
hereafter see how well this vow was kept for nearly five hun- 
dred years. 

The Roman Religion. 

Influence upon Political Affairs. — To the early Romans the 
gods were very real. Hence religion had a great influence 
upon the course of public events at Rome during the first cen- 
turies of her existence. Later, when the learned had lost faith 
in and fear of the gods, religion was used corruptly for political 
purposes. Thus it happens that the political history of the 
Roman people becomes closely interwoven with their religion. 
Therefore, in order to understand the transactions of the period 
upon which we are about to enter, we must first acquaint our- 
selves with at least the prominent features of the religious in- 
stitutions and beliefs of the Romans. 

The Chief Roman Deities. — The basis of the Roman religious 
system was the same as that of the Grecian : the germs of its 
institutions were brought from the same home in Central Asia. 
At the head of the Pantheon stood Jupiter, identical in all 
essential attributes with the Hellenic Zeus. He was the spe- 
cial protector of the Roman people. To him, together with 
Juno and Minerva, was consecrated, as we have already noticed, 
a magnificent temple upon the summit of the Capitoline Hill, 



THE ROMAN KINGDOM. 



2 49 



overlooking the Forum and the city. Mars, surnamed Quiri- 
nus, the god of war, standing next in rank, was the favorite 
deity and the fabled father of the Roman race, who were fond 
of calling themselves the "children of Mars." They proved 
themselves worthy offspring of the war-god. Martial games 
and festivals were celebrated in his honor during the first 
month of the Roman year, which bore, and still bears, in his 
honor, the name of March. Janus was a double-faced deity, 
" the god of the beginning and the end of everything." He 
opened and shut the gates of the day and night. The month 
of January was sacred to him, as were also all gates and doors. 
The gates of his temple were always kept open in time of war 
and shut in time of peace. 

The Eternal Fires of Vesta.— The fire upon the household 
hearth was thought the symbol of the goddess Vesta. Her 
worship was a favorite one with the Romans. The nation, too, 
as a single great family, had a common national hearth in the 
Temple of Vesta, where- the sacred fires were kept burning from 
generation to generation by six virgins, daughters of the Roman 
state. The Lares and Penates were household gods. Their 
images were set in the entrance of the dwelling. The Lares 
were the spirits of ancestors, which were thought to linger 
about the home as its guardians. 

Oracles and Divination. — The Romans were very supersti- 
tious. They thought, with the Greeks, that the will of the gods 
was communicated to men by means of oracles, and by strange 
sights, unusual events, or singular coincidences. There was 
but one oracle at Rome. The Romans, therefore, often had 
recourse to those in Magna Graecia, even sending for advice, 
in great emergencies, to the Delphian shrine. From Etruria 
was introduced the art of the haruspices, which consisted in 
discovering the divine mind by the appearance of victims slaia 

for the sacrifices. 

12 



250 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

The Sacred Colleges. — There were four sacred colleges — the 
Keepers of the Sibylline Books, the College of Augurs, the 
College of Pontiffs, and the College of the Heralds. 

A curious legend is told of the Sibylline Books. An old 
woman came to Tarquin and offered to sell him, for an ex- 
travagant price, nine volumes. As the king declined to pay 
the sum demanded, the woman departed, destroyed three of the 
books, and then, returning, offered the remainder at the very 
same sum as she had wanted for the complete number. The 
king still refused to purchase; so the sibyl went away and 
destroyed three more of the volumes, and, bringing back the 
remaining three, asked the same price as before. Tarquin was 
by this time so curious respecting the contents of the mysteri- 
ous books that he purchased the remaining volumes. It was 
found upon examination that they were filled with prophecies 
respecting the future of the Roman people. The books were 
placed in a stone chest, which was kept in a vault beneath the 
Capitoline temple ; and two men were appointed to take charge 
of them and interpret them. The number of " keepers " was in 
later times increased to sixty. The books were consulted only 
in times of the extremest danger. 

The College of Augurs was composed at first of four, but at 
last of sixteen, members. Their duty was to interpret the 
omens, or auspices, which were casual sights or appearances, 
by which means it was believed that Jupiter made known his 
will. Great skill was required in the " taking of the auspices," 
as it was called. No business of importance, public or private, 
was entered upon without first consulting the auspices, to as- 
certain whether they were favorable. The public assembly, 
for illustration, must not convene, to elect officers or to pass 
laws, unless the auspices had been taken and found propitious. 
Should a peal of thunder occur while the people were holding 
a meeting, that was considered an unfavorable omen, and the 
assembly must instantly disperse. 

It is easy to see how the power of the augurs might be used 



THE ROMAN KINGDOM. 25 1 

corruptly for political ends. At first all the members of the 
college were patricians, and very frequently they would prevent 
the plebeians from holding an assembly by giving out that the 
auspices were not favorable ; and sometimes, when matters 
were not taking such a course in the popular assembly as suited 
the nobles, and some measure obnoxious to their order was on 
the point of being carried, they would secure an announcement 
from the augurs that Jupiter was thundering, or manifesting his 
displeasure in some other way ; and the people were obliged 
to break up their meeting on the instant. One of the privileges 
contended for by the plebeians was admission to this college, 
that they might assist in watching the omens, and thus this 
important matter not be left entirely in the hands of their 

enemies. 

The College of Pontiffs was so called because one of the 
duties of its members was to keep in repair the bridges (pontes) 
over which the religious processions were accustomed to pass. 
This was the most important of all the religious institutions -of 
the Romans ; for to the pontiffs belonged the superintendence 
of all religious matters. In their keeping, too, was the calen- 
dar, and they could lengthen or shorten the year, which power 
they sometimes used to extend the office of a favorite or to cut 
short that of one who had incurred their displeasure. The 
head of the college was called Pontifex Maximus, which title 
was assumed by the Roman emperors, and after them by the 
Christian bishops of Rome ; and thus the name has come 
down to our own times. 

The College of Heralds had the care of all public matters 
pertaining to foreign nations. If the Roman people had suf- 
fered any wrong from another state, it was the duty of the 
heralds to demand satisfaction. If this was denied, and war 
determined upon, then a herald proceeded to the frontier of 
the enemy's country and hurled over the boundary a spear 
dipped in blood. This was a declaration of war. The Ro- 
mans were very careful in the observance of this ceremony. 



252 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

" In the war with Pyrrhus, as the spear could not be hurled into 
the enemy's territory, to preserve the form a subject of Pyr- 
rhus, a prisoner of war at Rome, was compelled to purchase 
a piece of land in the Flaminian Circus. This was declared 
to be hostile territory, and the pater patratus hurled here the 
hostile spear" (Leighton). 



LEGENDARY KINGS OF ROME. 

B.C. 

Romulus 753-7i6 

Numa Pompilius 715-672 

Tullus Hostilius 672-640 

Ancus Martius 640-616 

Tarquinius Priscus 616-578 

Servius Tullius 578-534 

Tarquinius Superbus 534 _ 5°9 

Names mythical, or at least uncertain, and the dates conjectural. 



THE ROMAN REPUBLIC : THE CONQUEST OF ITALY. 253 



CHAPTER XXV. 

THE ROMAN REPUBLIC : THE CONQUEST OF ITALY. 
(509-264 B.C.) 

The First Consuls.— With the monarchy overthrown and the 
last king and his house banished from Rome, the people set to 
work to reorganize the government. In place of the king, there 
were elected (by the comitia centuriata, in which assembly the 
plebeians had a place) two magistrates, or presidents, called 
consuls, who were chosen for one year, and were invested with 
all the powers, save some priestly functions, that had been held 
by the monarch during the regal period. It was necessary 
that the consuls should agree as touching any matter: neither 
could act without the consent of the other. 

Lucius Junius Brutus and Tarquinius Collatinus were the 
first consuls under the new constitution. But it is said that the 
very name of Tarquinius was so intolerable to the people that 
he was forced to resign the consulship, and that he and all his 
house were driven out of Rome. Another consul, Publius 
Valerius, was chosen in his stead. 

First Secession of the Plebeians. — For two centuries after the 
expulsion of the kings, the little Roman Republic was engaged 
in a constant struggle for existence. The Latin towns that 
had been forced to acknowledge the supremacy of Rome, to- 
gether with the Etruscans, taking advantage of the disorders 
that followed the political revolution, now rose in revolt ; and 
the result was that Rome was stripped of almost all the con- 
quests she had made under the kings, and had now to com- 
mence anew the work of subjugating and reducing to vassalage 



254 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

the tribes about her. In these early struggles of the infant re- 
public, patricians and plebeians stood side by side. Although 
the former had the chief management of the government, yet 
the constitution was amended from time to time in favor of the 
common people ; the nobles assenting to these changes through 
fear that the plebeians, if rendered dissatisfied with their place 
in the new government, might side with the banished king, who 
had joined the enemies of Rome, and aid in the restoration of 
the royal party. 

But upon the death of Tarquin affairs assumed a new aspect. 
There was now no longer any fear of the re-establishment of 
the monarchy, and the patricians, by their haughty and dictato- 
rial bearing towards the plebeians, soon made it manifest that 
their former concessions were prompted rather by fear and pol- 
icy than by unselfish concern for the welfare of their humbler 
partners in the state. The patricians held all the offices of the 
government. The poor plebeians, during the recent disorders 
and wars, had fallen in debt to the wealthy class — for the Ro- 
man soldier went to war at his own charges, equipping and 
feeding himself — and payment was now exacted with heartless 
severity. A debtor became the absolute property of his cred- 
itor, who might sell him as a slave to pay the debt, and in some 
cases even put him to death. All this was intolerable. The 
plebeians determined to secede from Rome and build a new 
city for themselves on a neighboring eminence, called after- 
wards the Sacred Hill. They marched away in a body from 
Rome to the chosen spot, and began making preparations for 
erecting new homes (494 B.C.). 

The Covenant and the Tribunes.— The patricians saw clearly 
that such a division must prove ruinous to the state, and that 
the plebeians must be persuaded to give up their enterprise 
and come back to Rome. The consul Valerius was sent to 
treat with the insurgents. The plebeians were at first obstinate, 
but at last were persuaded to yield to the entreaties of the em- 



THE ROMAN REPUBLIC : THE CONQUEST OF ITALY. 255 

bassy to return, being won to this mind, so it is said, by one of 
the wise senators, Menenius, who made use of the famous fable 
of the Body and the Members. 

The following covenant was entered into, and bound by the 
most solemn oaths and vows before the gods: The debts of 
the poor plebeians were to be cancelled and those held in slav- 
ery set free; and two magistrates, called tribunes, whose duty 
it should be to watch over and protect the rights of the plebe- 
ians, were to be chosen from the commons. The persons of 
these officers were made sacred. Any one interrupting a tribune 
in the discharge of his duties, or doing him any violence, was 
declared an outlaw whom any one might kill. That the tribunes 
might be always easily found, they were not allowed to go more 
than one mile beyond the city walls. Their houses were to be 
open night as well as day, that any plebeian unjustly dealt with 
might flee thither for protection and refuge. 

We cannot overestimate the importance of the change ef- 
fected in the Roman constitution by the creation of this office 
of the tribunate. Under the protection and leadership of the 
tribunes, they themselves protected by the gods and by oaths of 
inviolable sanctity, the plebeians now resumed their struggle 
for a share in all the offices and dignities of the state — a strug- 
gle which never ceased until the Roman government, as yet 
only republican in name, became in fact a real democracy, in 
which patrician and plebeian shared equally in all emoluments 
and privileges. 

Coriolanus. — The tradition of Coriolanus illustrates in what 
manner the tribunes cared for the rights of the common peo- 
ple and protected them from the oppression of the nobles. 
During a severe famine at Rome, Gelon, the King of Syracuse, 
sent large quantities of corn to the capital for distribution 
among the suffering poor. A certain patrician, Coriolanus, 
made a proposal that none of the corn should be given to the 
plebeians save on condition that they give up their tribunes. 



256 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

He was brought before the plebeian assembly on the charge 
of having broken the solemn covenant of the Sacred Mount, 
and so bitter was the feeling against him that he was obliged 
to flee from Rome. 

He now allied himself with the Volscians, enemies of Rome, 
and even led their armies against his native city. An embassy 
from the Senate was sent to him, to sue for peace. But the 
spirit of Coriolanus was bitter and revengeful, and he would 
listen to none of their proposals. Nothing availed to move 
him until his mother, at the head of a train of Roman matrons, 
came to his tent, and with tears pleaded with him to spare the 
city. Her entreaties and the "soft prayers" of his own wife 
and children prevailed, and with the words " Mother, thou hast 
saved Rome, but lost thy son," he led away the Volscian army. 

The traditions differ as to his fate. One says that he was 
condemned to death by the Volscians; while another account 
represents him as living to an advanced age in lonely exile. 

Cincinnatus made Dictator. — The enemies of Rome, taking 
advantage of the dissensions of the nobles and commons, press- 
ed upon the frontiers of the republic on all sides, ravaged La- 
tium, and even pitched their tents within sight of the walls of 
the capital. In 458 B.C., the ^Equians, while one of the consuls 
was away fighting the Sabines, defeated the forces of the other, 
and shut them up in a narrow valley, whence escape seemed 
impossible. There was great terror in Rome when news of 
the situation of the army was brought to the city. 

The Senate immediately appointed Cincinnatus, a noble pa- 
trician, dictator. The ambassadors that carried to him the 
message from the Senate found him upon his little farm near 
the Tiber, at work behind the plough. Accepting at once the 
office, he hastily gathered an army, marched to the relief of the 
consul, captured the entire army of the Volscians, and sent 
them beneath the yoke. (This was formed of two spears thrust 
firmly into the ground and crossed a few feet from the earth 
by a third. Prisoners of war were forced to pass beneath this 



THE ROMAN REPUBLIC: THE CONQUEST OF ITALY. 257 

yoke as a symbol of submission.) Cincinnatus then led his 
army back to Rome in triumph, laid down his office, and sought 
again the retirement of his farm. 

The Decemvirs and the Table of Laws. — Written laws are al- 
ways a great safeguard against oppression. Until what shall 
constitute a crime and what shall be its penalty are clearly 
written down and well known and understood by all, judges 
may render unfair decisions, or inflict harsher punishment than 
just, and yet run little risk — unless they go altogether too far 
— of being called to an accpunt; for no one but themselves 
knows what the law or the penalty really is. Hence in all 
struggles of the people against the tyranny of the ruling class, 
the demand for written laws is one of the first measures taken 
by the people for the protection of their persons and property. 
Thus we have seen the people of Athens, early in their struggle 
with the nobles, demanding and obtaining a code of written 
laws. The same thing now took place at Rome. The plebe- 
ians demanded that a code of laws be drawn up, in accordance 
with which the consuls, who exercised judicial powers, should 
render their decisions. The patricians offered a stubborn re- 
sistance to these wishes, but finally were forced to yield to the 
popular clamor. 

A commission was sent to the Greek cities of Southern Italy 
and to Athens to study the Grecian laws and customs. Upon 
the return of this embassy, a commission of ten magistrates, 
who were known as decemvirs, was appointed to frame a code 
of laws. These officers, while engaged in this work, were also 
to administer the entire government, and so were invested with 
the supreme power of the state. The patricians gave up their 
consuls and the plebeians their tribunes. At the end of the 
first year, the task of the board was quite far from being fin- 
ished, so a new decemvirate was elected to complete the work. 
Appius Claudius was the only member of the old board that 
was ieturned to the new. 

12* 



258 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

The code was soon finished, and the laws were wn't^n on 
twelve tablets of brass, which were fastened to the rostrum in 
the Forum, where they might be seen and read by all. These 
"Laws of the Twelve Tables" were to Roman jurisprudence 
what the good laws of Solon were to the Athenian constitution. 
They formed the basis of all new legislation for many centuries, 
and constituted a part of the education of the Roman youth — ■ 
every schoolboy being required to learn them by heart. 

Misrule and Overthrow of the Decemvirs. — The first de- 
cemvirs used the great power lodged in their hands with justice 
and prudence ; but the second board, under the leadership 
of Appius Claudius, instituted a most infamous and tyrannical 
rule. No man's life was safe, be he patrician or plebeian. An 
ex-tribune daring to denounce the course of the decemvirs was 
caused by them to be assassinated. Another act, even more 
outrageous than this, filled to the brim the cup of their iniqui- 
ties. Virginia was the beautiful daughter of a plebeian, and 
Appius Claudius, desiring to gain possession of her, made use 
of his authority as a judge to pronounce her a slave. The 
father of the maiden, preferring the death to the dishonor of his 
daughter, killed her with his own hand. Then, drawing the 
weapon from her breast, he hastened to the army, which was 
resisting a united invasion of the Sabines and ^Equians, and, 
exhibiting the bloody knife, told the story of the outrage. The 
soldiers rose as a single man and hurried to the city. The ex- 
citement resulted in a great body of the Romans, soldiers and 
citizens, probably chiefly plebeians, seceding from the state, 
and marching away to the Sacred Hill. This procedure, 
which once before had proved so effectual in securing justice 
to the oppressed, had a similar issue now. The situation was 
so critical that the decemvirs were forced to resign. The con- 
sulate and the tribunate were restored. Eight of the decem- 
virs were forced to go into exile ; Appius Claudius and one 
other, having been imprisoned, committed suicide. 



THE ROMAN REPUBLIC: THE CONQUEST OF ITALY. 259 

Consular or Military Tribunes. — The overthrow of the de- 
cemvirate was followed by a long struggle between the nobles 
and the commons, which was an effort on the part of the latter 
to gain admission to the consulship ; for up to this time only a 
patrician could hold that office. The contention resulted in a 
compromise. It was agreed that, in place of the two consuls, 
the people might elect from either order six (some ancient 
authorities say three) magistrates, who should be known as 
" military tribunes with consular powers." These officers 
differed from consuls more in name than in functions or au- 
thority. In fact, the plebeians had gained the office, but not 
the name. 

The Censors. — No sooner had the plebeians virtually secured 
admission to the consulship, than the jealous and exclusive 
patricians commenced scheming to rob them of the fruit of the 
victory they had gained. They effected this by taking from the 
consulate some of its most distinctive duties and powers, and 
conferring them upon two new patrician officers called censors. 
The functions of these magistrates were many and important. 
They took the census, and thus assigned to every man his 
position in the different classes of the citizens ; they had power 
to fill all vacancies in the Senate, and to strike from its rolls 
such names aj they deemed unworthy; and they could, for im- 
moralities or any improper conduct, not only degrade a man 
from his rank, but deprive him of his vote. It was their duty 
to watch the public morals and in case of necessity to adminis- 
ter wholesome advice. Thus we are told of their reproving 
the young Romans for wearing tunics with long sleeves — an 
Oriental and effeminate custom— and for neglecting to marry 
upon arriving at a proper age. 

The first censors were elected in the year 445 B.C.; about 
one hundred years afterwards, in 351 B.C., the plebeians secured 
the right of holding this office also. 



260 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Siege and Capture of Veii. — We must now turn to regard 
the fortunes of Rome in war. Almost from the founding of the 
city, we find its warlike citizens carrying on a fierce contest 
with their po verful Etruscan neighbors on the north. Veii was 
one of the largest and richest of the cities of Etruria. Around 
this the war gathered. The Romans, like the Grecians at 
Troy, lay beneath its walls for ten years. The length of the 
siege, and the necessity of maintaining a force permanently in 
the field, led to the establishment of a paid standing army; 
for hitherto the soldier had not only equipped himself, but had 
served without pay. Thus was laid the basis of that military 
power which was destined to effect the conquest of the world, 
and then, in the hands of ambitious and favorite generals, to 
overthrow the republic itself. 

The capture of Veii by the dictator Camillus (396 B.C.) was 
followed by that of many other Etruscan towns. Rome was 
enriched by their spoils, and became the centre of a large and 
lucrative trade. The frontiers of the republic were pushed out 
even beyond the utmost limits of the kingdom before its over- 
throw. All that was lost by the revolution had been now re- 
gained, and much besides had been won. At this moment 
there broke upon the city a storm from the north, which all but 
cut short the story we are narrating. 

Sack of Rome by the Gauls (390 b.c.).-— We have already 
told how, in very remote times, the tribes of Gaul, either pressed 
by new-comers from Asia or led by their wandering habits, 
crossed the Alps and established themselves in Northern Italy. 
While the Romans were conquering the towns of Southern 
Etruria, and thus pushing northward the boundaries of the re- 
public, these barbarian hordes were moving southward, and 
overrunning and devastating the countries of Central Italy. 

News was borne to Rome that they were advancing upon 
that city. A Roman army met them on the banks of the river 
Allia, eleven miles from the capital. The Romans were driven 



THE ROMAN REPUBLIC: THE CONQUEST OF ITALY. 261 

in great panic from the field. It would be impossible to pict- 
ure the consternation and despair that reigned at Rome when 
the fugitives brought to the city intelligence of the terrible dis- 
aster. It was never forgotten, and the clay of the battle of 
Allia was ever after a black day in the Roman calendar. The 
sacred vessels of the temples were buried ; the eternal fires of 
Vesta were hurriedly borne by their virgin keepers to a place 
of safety in Etruria ; and a large part of the population fled in 
dismay across the Tiber. No attempt was made to defend 
any portion of the city save the citadel. 

When the Gauls entered the city they found everything 
abandoned to them. The aged senators, so the Romans after- 
wards proudly related, thinking it unworthy of their office to 
seek safety in flight, resolved to meet death in a befitting way. 
Arrayed in their robes of office, each with his ivory-headed 
wand in his hand, they seated themselves in the Forum, in their 
chairs of state, and there sat, "silent and motionless as stat- 
ues," while the barbarians were carrying on their work of sack 
and pillage about them. The rude Gauls, arrested by the 
venerable aspect of the white-haired senators, gazed in awe 
upon the strange assembly, and offered them no violence. 
But, finally, one of the barbarians laid his hand upon the beard 
of the venerable Papirius, to stroke it under an impulse of 
childlike reverence. The aged senator, interpreting the 
movement as an insult, struck the Gaul with his sceptre. The 
spell was instantly broken. The enraged barbarians struck 
Papirius from his seat, and then falling upon the other sena- 
tors massacred them all. 

The little garrison within the Capitol, under the command 
of the hero Manlius, for seven months resisted all the efforts 
of the Gauls to dislodge them. A tradition tells how, when the 
barbarians, under cover of the darkness of night, had climbed 
the steep rock and had almost effected an entrance to the 
citadel, the defenders were awakened by the cackling of some 
geese, which, because sacred to Juno, the piety of the soldiers 



262 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

had spared, notwithstanding they were sorely in need of 
food. 

News was now brought the Gauls that the Venetians were 
overrunning their possessions in Northern Italy. This led 
them to open negotiations with the Romans. For one thou- 
sand pounds of gold they agreed to raise the siege of the cita- 
del and retire from the city. The story is, that, while the gold 
was being weighed out in the Forum, the Romans complained 
that the weights were false, when Brennus, the Gallic leader, 
threw his sword also into the scales, exclaiming, "Vcr victis /" 
"Woe to the conquered." Just at this moment Camillus, a 
brave patrician general, appeared upon the scene with a Ro- 
man army that had been gathered from the fugitives ; and, as 
he scattered the barbarians with heavy blows, he exclaimed, 
"Rome is ransomed by steel and not by gold." According to 
one account Brennus himself was taken prisoner; but another 
tradition says that he escaped, carrying with him not only the 
ransom, but a vast booty besides. 

The Rebuilding of Rome. — When the fugitives returned to 
Rome after the withdrawal of the Gauls, they found the city 
a heap of ruins. Some of the poorer classes, shrinking from 
the labor of rebuilding their old homes, proposed to abandon 
the site and make Veii their new capital. But love for the old 
spot at last prevailed over all the persuasions of indolence, and 
the people, with admirable courage, set themselves to the task 
of rebuilding their homes. It was a repetition of the scene at 
Athens after the retreat of the Persians. The city was speedily 
restored, and was soon enjoying her old position of supremacy 
among the surrounding states. There were some things, how- 
ever, which even Roman resolution and perseverance could 
not restore. These were the ancient records and documents, 
through whose irreparable loss the early history of Rome is 
involved in great obscurity and uncertainty. Some of the an- 
cient historians did not attempt to write the story of the city 



THE ROMAN REPUBLIC : THE CONQUEST OF ITALY. 263 

before its destruction by the Gauls, but began their narratives 
with its restoration after that terrible disaster. 



Treason and Death of Manlius.— The ravages of the Gauls 
left the poor plebeians in a most pitiable condition. In order 
to rebuild their dwellings and restock their farms, they were 
obliged to borrow money of the rich patricians, and so soon 
began again to experience the insult and oppression that were 
ever incident to the condition of the debtor class at Rome. 

The patrician Manlius, the hero of the brave defence of the 
Capitol, now came forward as the champion of the plebeians. 
It seems evident that in thus undertaking the cause of the com- 
mons he had personal aims and ambitions. He sold the larger 
part of his estates, and devoted the proceeds to the relief of the 
debtor class. The debts of some he paid outright. To over 
four hundred persons in great distress he loaned money free of 
interest. At the same time, he denounced, to the crowds that 
gathered about his house, the cruelty and oppression of the pa- 
tricians, and even went so far as to charge them with having 
enriched themselves with the money which had been con- 
tributed by all classes for replacing the utensils and ornaments 
of the temples that had been plundered by the Gauls. The 
patricians determined to crush him. He was imprisoned on 
the charge of libel. The clamor of the people secured his re- 
lease. With a large band of his followers, he now intrenched 
himself in his palace on the Capitoline Hill. He was finally 
seized, and brought to trial before the popular assembly, on the 
charge of conspiring to restore the office of king. From the 
Forum, where the people were gathered, the Capitol, which 
Manlius had so bravely defended against the barbarians, was 
in full sight. Pointing to the temples he had saved, he ap- 
pealed to the gods and to the gratitude of the Roman people. 
The people responded to the appeal in a way altogether natu- 
ral. They refused to condemn him. But brought to trial a 
second time, and now in a grove whence the citadel could not 



264 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

be seen, he was sentenced to death, and was thrown from the 
Tarpeian Rock.* This event occurred 384 B.C. 

Plebeians Admitted to the Consulship.— For nearly half a 
century after the death of Manlius the most important events 
in the history of Rome centre about the struggle of the plebe- 
ians for admission to those offices of the government whence 
the jealousy of the patricians still excluded them. The Licinian 
laws, besides relieving the poor of usurious interest, and effect- 
ing a more just division of the public lands, also provided that 
the consulship should be restored (we will recall that the con- 
suls had been replaced by military tribunes with consular 
power), and that one of the consuls should be a plebeian. This 
last provision opened to anyone of the plebeian class the high- 
est office in the state. The nobles, when they saw that it would 
be impossible to resist the popular demand, had recourse to 
the old device. They effected a compromise, whereby the 
judicial powers of the consuls were taken from that office and 
conferred upon two new magistrates called praetors. Only pa- 
tricians, of course, were to be eligible to this new office. They 
then permitted the Licinian laws to pass (366 B.C.). 

During the latter half of the fourth century B.C. (between the 
years 356-300) the plebeians gained admittance to the dicta- 
torship, the censorship, the prsetorship, and to the College of 
Augurs and the College of Pontiffs. With plebeians in all 
these positions, the rights of the lower order were fairly se- 
cured against oppressive and partisan decisions on the part 
of the magistrates, and against party fraud in the taking of 
the auspices and in the regulation of the calendar. There 

* The Tarpeian Rock was the name given to the cliff which the Capito- 
line Hill formed on the side towards the Tiber. It received its name from 
Tarpeia, daughter of one of the legendary keepers of the citadel, who be- 
trayed the fortress to the Sabines, and was afterwards slain by the Sabines 
themselves for her treachery. State criminals were frequently executed by 
being thrown from this rock. 



THE ROMAN REPUBLIC : THE CONQUEST OF ITALY. 265 

was now political equality between the nobility and the com- 
monalty. 

Wars for the Mastery of Italy. 

The First Samnite War (343-341 b.c.).— The union of the 
two orders in the state now allowed the Romans to employ 
their undivided strength in subjugating the different states of 
the peninsula. The most formidable competitors of the Ro- 
mans for supremacy in Italy were the Samnites, rough and 
warlike mountaineers who held the Apennines to the west of 
Latium. They were worthy rivals of the "children of Mars." 
The successive struggles between these martial races are known 
as the First. Second, and Third Samnite wars. They extended 
over a period of half a century, and in their course involved 
almost all the states of Italy. 

In 343 B.C., the Campanians, who were descendants of the 
Samnites, but whom life on the plains and contact with Hellenic 
civilization had transformed into a people very different from 
their kinsmen of the mountains, appealed to the Romans for 
aid against their troublesome relatives; for the Samnites of 
the hills were constantly sweeping down from the mountains 
and ravaging the fields of the Campanians. The Romans 
willingly extended the assistance asked, as they saw here an 
opportunity for the extension of their influence and authority. 
Of the first of the series of wars into which Rome was thus 
precipitated we know but little, although Livy wrote a long, 
but unfortunately very unreliable, narration of it. In the midst 
of the struggle, Rome was confronted by a dangerous revolt of 
her Latin allies, and, leaving the war unfinished, turned her 
forces upon the insurgents. 

Revolt of the Latin Cities (340-338 b.c). — The strife be- 
tween the Romans and their Latin allies was simply the old 
contest within the walls of the capital between the patricians 
and plebeians transferred to a larger arena. As the nobles 



266 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

had oppressed the commons, so now both these orders united 
in the oppression of the Latins — the plebeians in their bettered 
circumstances forgetting the lessons of adversity. The Latin 
allies demanded that the lands acquired by conquests should 
be distributed among them as well as among Roman citizens. 
This was but just; for it was their blood and toil, as they rep- 
resented, that had helped secure them. The Romans refused. 
All Latium rose in revolt against the injustice and tyranny of 
the oppressor. 

At the foot of Mount Vesuvius the Romans, with the aid of 
their old enemies the Samnites, with whom they had negotiated 
a hasty treaty, defeated the Latins and their allies. By 338 B.C., 
the insurrection, that for a moment appeared so threatening to 
the life of the republic, had been subdued and most of the 
towns of Latium reconquered. They were treated with Roman 
severity. With two or three exceptions, they were denied local 
self-government; Rome was made the market whither the in- 
habitants of the different cities must come to buy and sell; a 
citizen of one city was strictly forbidden to contract a marriage 
with a woman living in another, or to have any dealings with 
the inhabitants of a stranger town. Thus was the Latin Con- 
federacy broken up, and the various tribes or cantons of Latium 
from the position of allies reduced to that of subject states, with 
imperious and selfish Rome as their suzerain. 

Second Samnite War (326-304 b.c.).— In a few years after 
the close of the Latin contest, Rome was at war again with her 
old rival, the Samnites. During this second struggle a Ro- 
man army, while marching through a narrow defile, known as 
the Caudine Forks, fell into an ambuscade, was captured, and 
sent beneath the yoke. The Etruscans now came to the aid 
of the Samnites against their old enemy, but were defeated by 
the Romans at the Vadimonian Lake (310 B.C.). Shortly after 
this the capital of the Samnites, Bonianum, was captured, and 
a treaty of peace was concluded which stripped the Samnites 



THE ROMAN REPUBLIC : THE CONQUEST OF ITALY. 267 

of all the territory they had gained by conquest. Rome secured 
the new lands she had won, by means of fortified camps and 
colonies. 

The Third Samnite War (298-290 b.c). — It was not long be- 
fore the Samnites were again in arms and engaged in their 
third struggle with Rome. They had formed a powerful coali- 
tion which embraced all the states of Italy. The Lucanians, 
Apulians, Greeks, and Samnites were joined in the south; 
while Umbrians, Etruscans, and Gauls threatened Rome from 
the north. Roman courage rose with the danger. At Sentinum 
the united armies of the league met with a most disastrous 
defeat (295 B.C.), and the power of the coalition was broken. 
One after another the states that had joined the alliance were 
chastised. 

The Romans finally carried the war into Samnium. But 
there they were fighting with men at bay ; and the consul 
Fabius Gurges suffered a serious defeat. The Romans were 
on the point of depriving the unfortunate consul of his com- 
mand, when his aged father, Fabius Maximus, offered to take 
the field as his son's lieutenant. In another engagement vic- 
tory was won back to the side of the Romans. Gavius Pontius, 
the brave Samnite general who had spared the Roman army at 
the Caudine Forks, was taken prisoner, and, to the lasting dis- 
grace of his captors, was thrust into the Mamertine Prison be- 
neath the Capitoline and there beheaded. The Samnites were 
now soon reduced. In the treaty made with them they were 
allowed to retain Samnium and govern themselves, but Rome 
planted new colonies and established strong fortresses to watch 
their frontiers. 

The Gauls were next routed at the Vadimonian Lake ; the 
Etruscan power was then broken, and several of the cities of 
Etruria razed to the ground ; in the south the Lucanians were 
crushed and all the important Greek cities of Southern Italy, save 
Tarentum, were forced to acknowledge the supremacy of Rome. 



268 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

War with Pyrrhus. — Tare n turn was one of the most noted 
of the Hellenic cities of Magna Graecia. It was a seaport on 
the Calabrian coast, and had grown opulent through the ex- 
tended trade of its merchants. The capture of some Roman 
vessels, and an insult offered to an envoy of the republic by 
the Tarentines, led to a declaration of war against them by the 
Roman Senate. The Tarentines turned to Greece for aid. 
Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, cousin of Alexander the Great, who 
had an ambition to build up such an empire in the West as his 
famous kinsman had established in the East, responded to 
their entreaties, and crossed over into Italy with a small army 
of Greek mercenaries and twenty war-elephants. He organized 
and drilled the effeminate Tarentines, and soon felt prepared 
to face the Romans. 

The hostile armies met at Heraclea. It is said that when 
Pyrrhus, who had underestimated his foe, observed the skill 
which the Romans evinced in forming their lines of battle, he 
exclaimed, in admiration, " In war, at least, these men are not 
barbarians." The battle was won for Pyrrhus by his war-ele- 
phants, the sight of which, being new to the Romans, caused 
them to flee from the field in dismay. But Pyrrhus had lost 
thousands of his bravest troops. Victories gained by such 
losses in a country where he could not recruit his army, he saw 
clearly, meant final defeat. As he looked over the battle-field 
he is said to have turned to his companions and remarked, 
" Another such victory and I must return to Epirus alone." 
He noticed also, and not without appreciating its significance, 
that the wounds of the Roman soldiers killed in the action 
were all in front. " Had I such soldiers," said he, " I should 
soon be master of the world."* 

The prudence of the victorious Pyrrhus led him to send to 

* Beneath the spoils which he hung as an offering in the Temple of Jupi- 
ter at Tarentum he placed this inscription : 
"Those that had never been vanquished yet, Great Father of Olympus, 

Those have I vanquished in the fight, and they have vanquished me." 



THE ROMAN REPUBLIC : THE CONQUEST OF ITALY. 269 

the Romans proposals of peace. The embassy was headed by 
his chief minister, Cineas, whose eloquence, as Pyrrhus himself 
often said, had won him more victories than his own sword. 
When the Senate hesitated, its resolution was fixed by the elo- 
quence of the aged Appius : "Rome," exclaimed he, "shall 
never treat with a victorious foe." The ambassadors were 
obliged to return to Pyrrhus unsuccessful in their mission. It 
was at this time that Cineas, in answer to some inquiries of his 
master respecting the Romans, drew the celebrated parallels 
that likened their Senate to an assembly of kings, and war 
against such a people to an attack upon another Hydra. 

Pyrrhus, according to the Roman story-tellers, who most 
lavishly embellished this chapter of their history, was not more 
successful in attempts at bribery than in the arts of negotia- 
tion. Attempting by large offers of gold to win Fabricius, who 
had been intrusted by the Senate with an important embassy, 
the sturdy old Roman replied, " Poverty, with an honest name, 
is more to be desired than wealth." 

Another story relates how, when the physician of Pyrrhus 
went to Fabricius and offered to poison his enemy, he instantly 
put him in chains, and sent him back to his master for punish- 
ment. The sequel of this story is that Pyrrhus conceived such 
an exalted opinion of the Roman sense of honor that he per- 
mitted the prisoners in his hands to go to the capital to attend 
a festival, with no other security for their return than their 
simple promise, and that not a single man broke his word. 

After a second victory, as disastrous as his first, gained at 
Asculum, in Apulia, Pyrrhus crossed over into Sicily, to aid the 
Grecians there in their struggle with the Carthaginians. At 
first he was everywhere successful ; but finally fortune turned 
against him, and he was glad to escape from the island. Re- 
crossing the straits into Italy, he once more engaged the Ro- 
mans ; but at the battle of Beneventum suffered a disastrous 
and final defeat at the hands of the consul Curius Dentatus 
(274 B.C.). Leaving a sufficient force to garrison Tarentum, 



270 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

the baffled and disappointed king set sail for Epirus.* He 
had scarcely embarked before Tarentum surrendered to the 
Romans (272 B.C.). This ended the struggles for the mastery 
of Italy. Rome was now mistress of all the peninsula south 
of the Arnus and the Rubicon. It was now her care to con- 
solidate these possessions, and to fasten her hold upon them, 
by means of a perfect network of coloniesf and military roads. 

* " The glory of his life was ended; the two or three years that remained 
of it were passed in hopeless enterprises. One day he was proclaimed King 
of Macedon, and the next he lost his kingdom. Then he attacked Sparta, 
and nearly took it. Lastly, he assaulted Argos, and was killed by a tile 
thrown by a woman from the roof of a house." — Liddell's " History of 
Rome," p. 246. 

t " Colonies were not all of the same character. They must be distin- 
guished into two classes — the colonies of Roman citizens and the Latin col- 
onies. The colonies of Roman citizens consisted usually of three hundred 
men of approved military experience, who went forth with their families to 
occupy conquered cities of no great magnitude, but which were important 
as military positions, being usually on the sea-coast. These three hundred 
families formed a sort of patrician caste, while the old inhabitants sank into 
the condition formerly occupied by the plebeians at Rome. The heads of 
these families retained all their rights as Roman citizens, and might repair 
to Rome to vote in the popular assemblies. When in early Roman history 
we hear of the revolt of a colony, the meaning seems to be that the natives 
rose against the colonists and expelled them. Hence it is that we hear of 
colonists being sent more than once to the same place, as to Antium." — 
Liddell's " History of Rome," p. 255. 

The Latin colonies, numbering thirty at the time of the Second Punic 
War, were daughters of the different Latin towns of Latium. Many citizens 
of Rome joined these colonies, but all members of such were without any 
political rights at the capital. In a word, these Latin communities were 
simply allies of Rome. 



THE FIRST PUNIC WAR. 



271 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE FIRST PUNIC WAR. 
(264-241 B.C.) 

The City of Carthage. — Foremost among the cities founded 
by the Phoenicians upon the different shores of the Mediterra- 
nean was Carthage, upon the northern coast of Africa. The 
city is thought to have had its beginnings in a small trading 
factory, established late in the ninth century B.C., about one 
hundred years before the founding of Rome. The ground 
upon which it stood was leased at first of the native tribes. The 
favorable location of the colon}-, upon one of the best harbors of 
the African coast, gave the city a vast and lucrative commerce. 
At the period which we have now reached it had grown into an 
imperial city, covering, with its gardens and suburbs, a district 
twenty-three miles in circuit. It could not have contained less 
than 1,000,000 inhabitants. A commercial enterprise like that 
of the mother city, Tyre, and exactions from subject cities and 
states — three hundred Libyan cities acknowledged the suze- 
rainty of Carthage and paid tribute into its treasury — had ren- 
dered it enormously wealthy. In the third century before our 
era it was probably the richest city in the world. 

The Carthaginian Empire. — About the fifth century b.c, the 
Carthaginians not only ceased to pay ground-rent to the Lib- 
yans, but, subjugating the surrounding tribes, forced tribute 
from them. The other Phoenician factories and cities upon 
the different shores of the Western Mediterranean gradually 
acknowledged the supremacy of Carthage. Pursuing almost 
exactly the policy of Rome, she secured all newly gained terri- 



2)2 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 



tory by the establishment of military colonies. But, while ex- 
hibiting the martial spirit of the Romans, the Carthaginians 
displayed also the Phoenician fondness for commercial enter- 
prise. Carthage was simply another Tyre. Her history up to 
the beginning of her fatal struggle with Rome is but a repeti- 
tion of the story of the great Phoenician capital. She became 
mistress and queen of the Western Mediterranean. By the 
third century B.C., through peaceful colonization or by force of 
arms, she held sway over all the northern coast of Africa from 
the Greater Syrtis to the Pillars of Hercules, and possessed 
the larger part of Sicily, as well as Sardinia, Corsica, the Bale- 
aric Isles, Southern Spain, and scores of little islands scattered 
here and there in the neighboring seas. With all its shores 
dotted with her colonies and fortresses, and swept in every 
direction by the Carthaginian war-galleys, the Western Medi- 
terranean had become a " Phoenician lake," in which, as the 
Carthaginians boasted, no one dared wash his hands without 
their permission. 

Carthaginian Government and Religion. — The government 
of Carthage, like that of Rome, was republican in form. Cor- 
responding to the Roman consuls, two magistrates, called Suf- 
fetes, stood at the head of the State. The Senate was com- 
posed of the heads of the leading families : its duties and 
powers were very like those of the Roman Senate. So well- 
balanced was the constitution, and so prudent was its ad- 
ministration, that six hundred years of Carthaginian history 
exhibited not a single revolution. 

The religion of the Carthaginians was the old Canaanitish 
worship of Baal, or the Sun. To Moloch — another name for 
the fire-god — "who rejoiced in human victims and in parents' 
tears," they offered human sacrifices. 

Rome and Carthage Compared.— These two great republics, 
which for more than five centuries had been slowly extending 



THE FIRST PUNIC WAR. 



273 



their limits and maturing their powers upon the opposite shores 
of the Mediterranean, were now about to begin one of the most 
memorable struggles of all antiquity — a duel that was to last, 
with every vicissitude of fortune, for nearly one hundred years. 
As was the case in the contest between Athens and Sparta, so 
now the two rival cities, with their allies and dependencies, 
were very nearly matched in strength and resources. The Ro- 
mans, it is true, were almost destitute of a navy: while the 
Carthaginians had the largest and most splendidly equipped 
fleet that ever patrolled the waters of the Mediterranean. But 
although the Carthaginians were superior to the Romans in 
naval warfare, they were greatly their inferiors in land en- 
counters. The Carthaginian territory, moreover, was widely 
scattered, embracing extended coasts and isolated islands; 
while the Roman possessions were compact, and confined to a 
single and easily defended peninsula. Again, the Carthagin- 
ian armies were formed chiefly of mercenaries, while those of 
Rome were recruited very largely from the ranks of the Roman 
people. And then the subject states of Carthage were mostly 
of another race, language, and religion from their Phoenician 
conquerors, and were ready, upon the first disaster to the rul- 
ing city, to drop away from their allegiance ; while the Latin 
allies and Italian dependencies of Rome were close kindred 
to her in race and religion, and so, through natural impulse, for 
the most part remained loyal to her during even the darkest 
periods of her struggle with her rival. 

The Beginning of the War.— Lying between Italy and the 
coast of Africa is the large island of Sicily. It is in easy sight 
of the former, and its southernmost point is only ninety miles 
from the latter. At the commencement of the First Punic 
War, the Carthaginians held possession of all the island save 
a strip of the eastern coast which was under the sway of the 
Greek city of Syrac^si. The Greeks and Carthaginians had 
carried on an almost uninterrupted struggle through two cen- 

13 



274 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 



turies for the control of the island. The Romans had not yet 
set foot upon it. But it was destined to become the scene of 
the most terrible encounters between the armaments of the two 
rivals. Pyrrhus had foreseen it all. As he withdrew from the 
island, he said, "What a fine battle-field we are leaving for the 
Romans and Carthaginians." 

Hostilities were brought about in the following way. Dur- 
ing the war with Pyrrhus, some Campanians, who had been 
serving as mercenaries in the army of the King of Syracuse, 
while returning to Italy, conceived the project of seizing the 
town of Messana, on the Sicilian Straits. They killed the citi- 
zens, intrenched themselves in the place, and commenced to 
annoy the surrounding country with their marauding bands. 
Hiero, King of Syracuse, besieged the ruffians in their strong- 
hold. The Mamertines, or " Sons of Mars," for thus they 
termed themselves, appealed to the Romans for aid, basing 
their claims to assistance upon the alleged fact of common 
descent from the war-god. Now, the Romans had just pun- 
ished a similar band of Campanian robbers who had seized 
Rhegium, on the Italian side of the channel. To turn about 
now and lend aid to the Sicilian band would be the greatest 
inconsistency. But in case they did not give the assistance 
asked, it was certain that the Mamertines would look to the 
Carthaginians for succor ; and so Messana would come into 
the hands of their rivals. 

The appeal of the Mamertines was laid before the Roman 
Senate. Shrinking from the responsibility of taking a step 
which it was easy to foresee must involve tremendous conse- 
quences, and commit Rome to a policy of conquests out of 
Italy, the Senate referred the matter to the popular assembly. 
Influenced by ambitious leaders, eager for booty, and allured 
by promise of fresh lands for apportionment, the people voted 
for war. An army was speedily gathered and placed under 
the command of Appius Claudius, and was borne by ships, 
furnished by the Greek cities, across the narrow straits to 



THE FIRST PUNIC WAR. 275 

Messana. The Romans had passed the Rubicon. That act 
committed them to a career of foreign conquest destined to 
continue until their armies had made the circuit of the Medi- 
terranean. 

Meanwhile, through the intervention of the Carthaginians, 
the Syracusans and Mamertines had been induced to conclude 
a treaty of peace, and the Carthaginians had been allowed to 
place a garrison in Messana. With the matter thus composed, 
there was now no reason why the Romans should give any 
further attention to it. But the consul and the army were 
both bent on war. Claudius sent an embassy to Messana, 
to persuade the Mamertines to drive out the Carthaginians 
and come into an alliance with the Romans. This was done. 
The Syracusans and Carthaginians, old enemies and rivals 
though they had been, joined their forces against the insolent 
new-comers. The allies were completely defeated in the first 
battle, and the Roman army obtained a sure foothold upon the 
island. 

In the following year both consuls were placed at the head 
of formidable armies for the conquest of Sicily. A large por- 
tion of the island was quickly overrun, and many of the cities 
threw off their allegiance to Syracuse and Carthage, and be- 
came allies of Rome. Hiero, seeing that he was upon the los- 
ing side, deserted the cause of the Carthaginians, and formed 
an alliance with the Romans, and ever after remained their 
firm friend. The aid which he rendered the Romans on dif- 
ferent occasions during their struggle with Carthage was timely 
and substantial. 

After the forming of this alliance the Romans laid siege to 
Agrigentum, one of the most important of the Sicilian cities yet 
remaining in the hands of the Carthaginians. This place was 
captured after a siege of seven months. The Carthaginians 
were now shut up in the strongly fortified cities of Eryx and 
Panormus. 



276 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

The Romans Build their First Fleet.— Their experience dur- 
ing the past campaigns had shown the Romans that if they 
were to cope successfully with the Carthaginians they must be 
able to meet them upon the sea as well as upon the land. Not 
only did the Carthaginian ships annoy the Sicilian coast towns 
which were already in the hands of the Romans; but they even 
made descents upon the shores of Italy, ravaged the fields and 
villages, and sailed away with their booty before pursuit was 
possible. To guard their shores and ward off these attacks, 
the Romans had no fleet; like the ancient Egyptians, they 
hated the sea. Their Greek and Etruscan allies were, indeed, 
maritime peoples, and possessed considerable fleets, which were 
at the disposal of the Romans. But these vessels were merely 
triremes, galleys with three banks of oars ; while the Cartha- 
ginian ships were quinqueremes, or vessels with five rows of 
oars. The former were worthless to cope with the latter, such 
an advantage did these have in their greater weight and height. 
So the Romans determined to build a fleet of quinqueremes. 

Now it so happened that, a little while before, a Carthaginian 
galley had been wrecked upon the shore of Southern Italy. 
This served as a pattern. It is said that within the almost 
incredibly short space of sixty days a growing forest was con- 
verted into a fleet of one hundred and twenty war-galleys. 
While the ships were building, the Roman soldiers were be- 
ing trained in the duties of sailors by practising in rowing, 
while sitting in lines on tiers of benches built on the land. 
With the shore ringing with the sounds of the hurried work 
upon the galleys, and crowded with the groups of "make-believe 
rowers," the scene must have been a somewhat animated as 
well as ludicrous one. Yet it all meant very serious business. 

The First Sea-fight. — The consul Duillius was intrusted 
with the command of the fleet. He met the Carthaginian 
squadron near the city and promontory of Mylae, on the north- 
ern coast of Sicily (260 B.C.). A single precaution gave the 



THE FIRST PUNIC WAR. 



277 



victory to the Romans. Distrusting their ability to match the 
skill of their enemies in manoeuvring their ships, they had pro- 
vided each with a drawbridge, over thirty feet in length, and 
wide enough for two persons to pass over it abreast. It was 
raised and lowered by means of pulleys attached to the mast. 
The Carthaginian galleys bore clown swiftly upon the Roman 
ships, thinking to pierce and sink with their brazen beaks the 
clumsy-looking structures. The bridges alone saved the Ro- 
man fleet from destruction. As soon as a Carthaginian ship 
came near enough to a Roman vessel, the gangway was allowed 
to fall upon the approaching galley ; and the long spike with 
which the end was armed, piercing the deck, instantly pinned 
the vessels together. The Roman soldiers, rushing along the 
bridge, were soon engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict with their 
enemies, in which species of encounter the former were sure of 
an easy victory. Fifty of the Carthaginian galleys were capt- 
ured; the remainder — there were one hundred and thirty 
ships in the fleet — wisely refusing to rush into the terrible and 
fatal embrace in which they had seen their companions locked 
and crushed, turned their prows in flight. 

The Romans had gained their first naval victory. The joy 
at Rome was unbounded. It inspired, in the more sanguine, 
splendid visions of maritime command and glory. The Medi- 
terranean should speedily become a Roman lake, in which no 
vessel might float without the consent of Rome. Duillius was 
honored with a magnificent triumph, and the Senate ordained 
that, in passing through the city to his home at night, he should 
always be escorted with torches and music. In the Forum was 
raised a splendid memorial column, " adorned with the brazen 
beaks of the vessels which his wise ignorance and his clumsy 
skill had enabled him to capture." 

Naval Battle of Ecnomus. — The results of the naval engage- 
ment of Mylae encouraged the Romans to push the war with re- 
doubled energy. Almost all Sicily was soon in their hands, 



273 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

and forces were landed in Sardinia and Corsica, to effect the 
subjugation of those islands. The Roman fleet was increased 
by a large number of vessels, and placed under the command 
of the two consuls, Atillius Regulus and L. Manlius Vulso, who 
were ordered to carry the war into Africa. They crept with 
their armament, embracing three hundred and thirty galleys, 
along the southern shore of Sicily, to the headland of Ecnomus, 
where they encountered the squadrons of the enemy. The 
Carthaginians had drained every resource to gather a fleet that 
should be able effectually to guard the passage to Africa, know- 
ing well what the carrying of war into their African dependen- 
cies meant. Their armament numbered three hundred and 
fifty ships of war. It is estimated that the united fleets bore 
300,000 men, the largest number that ever fought together 
upon the sea. The Carthaginian fleet was almost annihilated 
(256 B.C.). 

Regulus. — Nothing now hindered the Romans from making 
a descent upon the African coast. They disembarked near 
Carthage. The country, rich in gardens and villas, was ravaged 
far and wide, and the capital itself was threatened. The towns 
fell an easy prey to the Romans, for the reason that the Car- 
thaginians, as a precaution against their revolt, had forbidden 
them to erect defences. 

The consul Manlius now received orders from the Senate 
to return to Rome with the prisoners and the booty already 
gathered. Regulus was left with scarcely 16,000 men to finish 
the war. At first he was everywhere successful. The number 
of towns he captured is stated at two hundred. He sent word 
to Rome that he had "sealed up the gates of Carthage with 
terror." 

Desiring the credit of bringing the war to a close, Regulus 
hastened to enter into negotiations of peace with the Cartha- 
ginians before his successor should come to assume command; 
but so insolent, ungenerous, and cruel were the terms he pro- 



THE FIRST PUNIC WAR. 279 

posed that the Carthaginians, indignantly refusing them, re- 
solved to continue the war. They intrusted the command of 
their armies to an able Spartan general, named Xanthippus, 
who, with a small but disciplined band of Lacedaemonians, had 
come to offer aid to the Carthaginians and to seek fortune for 
himself. With the aid of the Carthaginian war-elephants he 
inflicted a crushing defeat upon Regulus, and made him a 
prisoner. A fleet which was sent to bear away the remnants 
of the shattered army was wrecked in a terrific storm off the 
coast of Sicily, and the shores of the island were strewn with 
the wrecks of between two and three hundred ships, and with 
the bodies of 100,000 men. 

Loss of a Second Roman Fleet.— Undismayed by the terrible 
disaster that had overtaken the transport fleet, the Romans set 
to work to build another. In the short space of three months 
a squadron of two hundred and twenty ships was afloat and 
manned. After capturing the strong fortress of Panormus, the 
fleet sailed for the coast of Africa, and, although it secured some 
booty, yet it accomplished nothing of importance, and, after ex- 
periencing great dangers in the unknown whirlpools of the 
Syrtis, turned back to Italy. When already in sight of the 
peninsula, off the headland of Palinurus, a terrible storm swept 
down upon the sea, and one hundred and fifty of the galleys 
were sunk or dashed to pieces upon the rocks. The visions 
of naval supremacy awakened among the Romans by the splen- 
did victories of Mylae and Ecnomus were thus suddenly dis- 
pelled by these two successive and appalling disasters that had 
overtaken their armaments. 

The Battle of Panormus. — For a few years the Romans re- 
frained from tempting again the hostile powers of the sea. 
Sicily became the battle-ground where the war was continued, 
although with but little spirit on either side, until the arrival in 
the island of the Carthaginian general Hasdrubal (251 B.C.). 



280 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

He brought with him one hundred and forty elephants trained 
in war. Of all the instruments of death which the Roman 
soldiers were accustomed to face, none in the history of the 
legionaries inspired them with such uncontrollable terror as 
these " wild beasts," as they termed them. The furious rage 
with which these monsters, themselves almost invulnerable to 
the darts of the enemy, swept down the opposing ranks with 
their trunks, and tossed and trampled to pieces the bodies of 
their victims, was indeed well calculated to inspire a most ex- 
aggerated dread. 

Beneath the walls of Panormus, the consul Metellus drew 
Hasdrubal into an engagement. He checked the terrific charge 
of the war-elephants by discharges of arrows dipped in flaming 
pitch, which caused the frightened animals to rush back upon 
and crush through the disordered ranks of the Carthaginians. 
The result was a complete victory for the Romans. After the 
battle the Romans induced the drivers of the elephants, which 
were roaming over the field in a sort of panic, to capture and 
quiet the creatures. Once in captivity, they were floated across 
the Sicilian Straits on huge rafts, and to the number of twenty 
graced the triumphal procession of Metellus. After having 
been led through the Forum and along the Via Sacra, they 
were conducted to the Circus, and there slain in the presence 
of the assembled multitudes. 

Regulus and the Carthaginian Embassy. — The result of the 
battle of Panormus dispirited the Carthaginians. They sent 
an embassy to Rome, to negotiate for peace, or, if that could 
not be reached, to effect an exchange of prisoners. Among 
the commissioners was Regulus, who since his capture, five 
years before, had been held a prisoner in Africa. Before set- 
ting out from Carthage he had promised to return if the em- 
bassy were unsuccessful. For the sake of his own release, the 
Carthaginians supposed he would counsel peace, or at least 
urge an exchange of prisoners. But it is related that upon 



THE FIRST PUNIC WAR. 28 1 

arrival at Rome he counselled war instead of peace, at the same 
time revealing to the Senate the enfeebled condition of Car- 
thage. As to the exchange of prisoners he said, " Let those who 
have surrendered when they ought to have died, die in the land 
which has witnessed their disgrace." Referring to himself, he 
added, " I am old ; and in the short period of life still remain- 
ing to me can do my country little service, while the generals 
who would be exchanged for me are still hale and vigorous." 

The Roman Senate, following his counsel, rejected all the 
proposals of the embassy ; and Regulus, in spite of the tears 
and entreaties of his wife and friends, turned away from Rome, 
and set out for Carthage to bear such fate as he well knew the 
Carthaginians, in their disappointment and anger, would be 
sure to visit upon him. 

The tradition goes on to tell how, upon his arrival at Car- 
thage, he was confined in a cask driven full of spikes, and then 
left to die of starvation and pain. This part of the tale has 
been doubted (by Niebuhr), and the finest touches of the other 
portions are supposed to have been added by the poets. " It 
is," says a competent critic, "an ideal picture of a brave man 
bearing up under a great misfortune, and striving as best he 
could to wipe out disgrace ; and as an ideal picture we are 
content to let it pass." 

Loss of Two Roman Fleets.— After the failure of the Cartha- 
ginian embassy, the war went on by land and by sea with vary- 
ing vicissitudes. The Carthaginians still held two strong for- 
tresses in Sicily — Lilybasum and Drepana, both situated in the 
southwestern part of the island, very near to Africa. For ten 
years the Romans pressed in vain the siege of the former place. 
During this period one of the consuls, Claudius, a most in- 
competent and arrogant man, resolved, against all prudent ad- 
vice, to make a naval attack upon Drepana. He there met 
with an overwhelming defeat. Almost a hundred vessels were 
lost. The disaster caused the greatest alarm at Rome. Su- 

13* 



282 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

perstition increased the fears of the people. It was reported 
that just before the battle, when the auspices were being taken, 
and the sacred chickens would not eat, Claudius had given 
orders to have them thrown into the sea, irreverently remark- 
ing, " At any rate, they shall drink." Imagination was free to 
depict what further evils the offended gods might inflict upon 
the Roman state. 

The gloomiest forebodings might have found justification in 
subsequent events. The other consul just now met with a 
great disaster. He was proceeding along the southern coast 
of Sicily with a squadron of eight hundred merchantmen and 
over one hundred war-galleys, the former loaded with grain 
for the army before Lilybseum. The Carthaginian admiral, re- 
ceiving information of the approach of the Roman consul, set 
his fleet in motion, in order to intercept him. When the trans- 
ports sighted the Carthaginian squadron, they sought refuge 
from the heavy war-ships by running in close to the shore. 
While they were in this position, a severe storm arose. The 
experienced Phoenician sailors stood out to sea, and weathered 
the tempest in safety; while the Roman vessels were beaten 
to pieces upon the rocks. Not a single ship escaped. The 
coast for miles was strewn with broken planks and bodies, and 
heaped with vast windrows of corn cast up by the waves. 

Close of the First Punic War. — The war had now lasted for 
fifteen years. Four Roman fleets had been destroyed, three 
of which had been sunk or broken to pieces by storms. Of 
the fourteen hundred vessels that had been lost, seven hundred 
were war-galleys — all large and costly quinqueremes. Only 
one hundred of these had fallen into the hands of the enemy; 
the remainder were a sacrifice to the malign and hostile power 
of the waves. Such successive blows from an invisible hand 
were enough to blanch the faces even of the sturdy Romans. 
Neptune manifestly denied to the "Children of Mars" the 
realm of the sea. 



THE FIRST PUNIC WAR. 283 

It was impossible, for the six years following the last disaster, 
to infuse any spirit into the struggle. In 247 B.C., Hamilcar 
Barcas, the father of the great Hannibal, assumed the command 
of the Carthaginian forces, and for several years conducted 
the war with great ability on the island of Sicily, even making 
Rome tremble for the safety of her Italian possessions. 

Once more the Romans determined to commit their cause 
to the element that had been so unfriendly to them. A fleet 
of two hundred vessels was built and equipped, but entirely by 
private subscription; for the Senate feared that public senti- 
ment would not sustain them in levying a tax for fitting up an- 
other costly armament as a sacrifice to the insatiable Neptune. 
This people's squadron, as we may call it, was intrusted to the 
command of the consul Catulus. He met the Carthaginian 
fleet, under the command of the admiral Hanno, near the 
iEgatian islands, and inflicted upon it a crushing defeat. 

The Carthaginians now sued for peace. The terms proposed 
by the Romans were at first so harsh that Hamilcar rejected 
them with just indignation. But finally a treaty was arranged, 
the terms of which required that Carthage should give up the 
island of Sicily, surrender all her prisoners, and pay an indem- 
nity of 3200 talents (about $4,000,000), one third of which was 
to be paid down, and the balance in ten yearly payments. 
Thus ended (241 B.C.), after a continuance of twenty-four years, 
the first great struggle between Carthage and Rome. 



284 ANCIENT HISTORY. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 
(2I8-20I B.C.) 

Rome between the First and Second Pufiic Wars. 

The First Roman Province. — The First Punic War lasted 
twenty-four years. During a period of almost exactly the same 
length — that is, for the twenty-three years that followed the close 
of the first struggle — the two rivals strained every power and 
taxed every resource in preparation for a renewal of the con- 
test. 

The Romans settled the affairs of Sicily, organizing it as a 
province of the republic. This island was the first territory 
beyond the limits of Italy that Rome had conquered, and the 
Sicilian the first of Roman provinces. But as the imperial 
city extended her conquests, her provincial possessions in- 
creased in number and size until they formed at last a perfect 
cordon about the Mediterranean. Each province was usually 
governed by an officer bearing the title of praetor, sent out 
from the capital, and paid an annual tribute or tax to Rome. 

Rome Acquires Sardinia and Corsica. — The first acquisition 
by the Romans of lands beyond the peninsula seems to have 
created in them an insatiable ambition for foreign conquests. 
They soon found a pretext for seizing the island of Sardinia, 
the most ancient and, after Sicily, the most prized of the pos- 
sessions of the Carthaginians. An insurrection breaking out 
upon the island, the Carthaginians were moving to suppress it, 
when the Romans insolently commanded them not only to de- 
sist from their military preparations (pretending that they be- 



THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 285 

lieved them a threat against Rome), but to surrender Sardinia, 
and, moreover, to pay a fine of 1 200 talents ($1,500,000). Car- 
thage, exhausted as she was, could do nothing but comply. 
The meanness and perfidy of the Romans in this matter made 
more bitter and implacable, if that were possible, the Cartha- 
ginian hatred of the Roman race. Sardinia, in connection 
with Corsica, which was also seized, was formed into a Roman 
province. With her hands upon these islands, the authority of 
Rome in the western or Tuscan Sea was supreme. 

The Illyrian Corsairs are Punished. — In a more legitimate 
way the Romans extended their influence over the seas that 
wash the eastern shores of Italy. For a long time the Adriatic 
and Ionian waters had been infested with Illyrian pirates, who 
issued from the roadsteads of the northwestern coasts of the 
former sea. These buccaneers not only scoured the seas for 
merchantmen, but troubled the Hellenic towns along the shores 
of Greece, and were even so bold as to make descents upon 
the Italian coasts. The Roman fleet chased these corsairs 
from the Adriatic, and captured several of their strongholds. 
Rome now assumed a sort of protectorate over the Greek cities 
of the Adriatic coasts. This was her first step towards final 
supremacy in Macedonia and Greece. 

War with the Gauls. — In the north, during this same period, 
Roman authority was extended from the Apennines and the 
Rubicon to the foot of the Alps. Alarmed at the advance of 
the Romans, who were pushing northward their great military 
road, called the Flaminian Way, and also settling with dis- 
charged soldiers and needy citizens the tracts of frontier land 
wrested some time before from the Gauls, the Boii, a tribe of 
that race, stirred up all the Gallic peoples already in Italy, be- 
sides their kinsmen who were yet beyond the mountains, for an 
assault upon Rome. Intelligence of this movement among the 
northern tribes threw all Italy into a fever of excitement. At 



286 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Rome the terror was great ; for not yet had died out of memory 
what the city had once suffered at the hands of the ancestors 
of these same barbarians that were now again gathering their 
hordes for sack and pillage. An ancient prediction, found in 
the Sibylline books, declared that a portion of Roman territory 
must needs be occupied by Gauls. Hoping sufficiently to ful- 
fil the prophecy and satisfy Fate, the Roman Senate caused 
two Gauls to be buried alive in one of the public squares of 
the capital. 

Meanwhile the barbarians had advanced into Etruria, ravag- 
ing the country as they moved southward. After gathering a 
large amount of booty, they were carrying this back to a place 
of safety, when they were surrounded by the Roman armies at 
Telamon, and almost annihilated (225 B.C.). The Romans, 
taking advantage of this victory, pushed on into the plains of 
the Po, captured the city which is now known as Milan, and 
extended their authority to the foot-hills of the Alps. To guard 
the new territory, two military colonies, Placentia and Cremona, 
were established upon the opposite banks of the Po. 

Carthage between the First and Second Punk Wars. 

The Truceless War.— Scarcely had peace been concluded 
with Rome at the end of the First Punic War, before Carthage 
was plunged into a still deadlier struggle, which for a time 
threatened her very existence. The mercenary troops, upon 
their return from Sicily, revolted, on account of not receiving 
their pay. Their appeal to the native tribes of Africa was an- 
swered by a general uprising throughout the dependencies of 
Carthage. The extent of the revolt shows how hateful and 
hated was the rule of the great capital over her subject states. 

The suppression of the insurrection was at first committed 
to Hanno, but so incompetent did he show himself that the 
command was transferred to his rival Hamilcar. It was a war 
between master and slave ; and, as is always true of such strug- 



THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 287 

gles, was unspeakably bitter and cruel. It is known in history 
as "The Truceless War." The barbarous Libyans mutilated 
in a terrible manner and by wholesale the prisoners in their 
hands ; and Hamilcar retaliated by giving his captives to the 
elephants to be trampled to death. At one time Carthage was 
the only city remaining in the hands of the government. But 
the genius of Hamilcar at last triumphed. The Libyans were 
overpowered and simply exterminated. Many were crucified, 
or put to death in other ways with every refinement of cruelty. 

Hamilcar in Spain. — It was during the Truceless War that 
the revolt broke out in Sardinia, with the outcome of which we 
are already familiar. Hamilcar Barcas determined to repair 
the loss of Sicily and Sardinia by new conquests in Spain. He 
crossed over into that country, and for nine years devoted his 
commanding genius to organizing the different Iberian tribes 
into a compact state, and in developing the rich gold and silver 
mines of the southern part of the peninsula. He fell in battle 
228 B.C. 

Hamilcar Barcas was the greatest general that up to this 
time the Carthaginian race had produced. Genius is seldom 
transmitted ; but in the Barcine family the rule was broken, 
and the rare genius of Hamilcar reappeared in his sons, whom 
he himself, it is said, was fond of calling the "lion's brood." 
Hannibal, the oldest, was only nineteen at the time of his 
father's death, and being thus too young to assume command, 
Hasdrubal,* the son-in-law of Hamilcar, was chosen to succeed 
him. He carried out the unfinished plans of Hamilcar, ex- 
tended and consolidated the Carthaginian power in Spain, and 
upon the western coast founded New Carthage as the centre 
and capital of the newly acquired territory. The native tribes 
were conciliated rather than conquered. The Barcine family 
knew how to rule as well as how to fight. 

* Not to be confounded with Hannibal's own brother Hasdrubal. See 
P- 297- 



288 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Hannibal's Vow. — Upon the death of Hasdrubal, which oc- 
curred 221 B.C., Hannibal, now twenty-six years of age, was by 
the unanimous voice of the army called to be their leader. 
When a child of nine years he had been led by his father to 
the altar ; and there, with his hands upon the sacrifice, the 
little boy had sworn eternal hatred to the Roman race. He 
was driven on to his gigantic undertakings and to his hard 
fate, not only by the restless fires of his warlike genius, but, as 
he himself declared, by the sacred obligations of a vow that 
could not be broken. 

Hannibal Attacks Saguntum. — In two years Hannibal ex- 
tended the Carthaginian power to the Ebro. Saguntum, a 
Greek city upon the east coast of Spain, alone remained un- 
subdued. The Romans, who were jealously watching affairs in 
the peninsula, had entered into an alliance with this city, and 
taken it, with other Greek cities in that quarter of the Mediter- 
ranean, under their protection. Hannibal, although he well 
knew that an attack upon this place would precipitate hostili- 
ties with Rome, laid siege to it in the spring of 219 B.C. He 
was eager for the renewal of the old contest. The Roman 
Senate sent messengers to him forbidding his making war upon 
a city which was a friend and ally of the Roman people. Di- 
recting the envoys to bear their message to the Carthaginian 
Senate, he continued the siege, and, after an investment of 
eight months, gained possession of the town. 

The Romans now sent commissioners to Carthage to de- 
mand of the Senate that they should give up Hannibal to them, 
and by so doing repudiate the act of their general. The 
Carthaginians hesitated. Then Quintus Fabius, chief of the 
embassy, gathering up his toga, said: "I carry here peace and 
war; choose, men of Carthage, which ye will have." " Give us 
whichever ye will," was the reply. " War, then," said Fabius, 
dropping his toga. The "die was now cast; and the arena 
was cleared for the foremost man of his race and his time, 



THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 289 

perhaps the mightiest military genius of any race and of any 
time."* 



The Second Punic War. 

Hannibal Begins his March. — The Carthaginian empire was 
now stirred with preparations for the impending struggle. 
Hannibal was the life and soul of every movement. He 
planned and executed. The Carthaginian Senate acquiesced 
in and tardily confirmed his acts. His bold plan was to cross 
the Pyrenees and Alps and descend upon Rome from the 
north. He secured the provinces in Spain and Africa by 
placing garrisons of Iberians in Africa and of Libyans in the 
peninsula. Ambassadors were sent among the Gallic tribes 
on both sides of the Alps, to invite them to be ready to join 
the army that would soon set out from Spain. 

With these preparations completed, Hannibal left New Car- 
thage early in the spring of 218 B.C., with an army numbering 
about 100,000 men, and including thirty-seven war elepliants. 
A hostile country lay between him and the Pyrenees. Through 
the warlike tribes that resisted his march he forced his way to 
the foot of the mountains that guard the northern frontier of 
Spain. More than 20,000 of his soldiers were lost in this 
part of his march. 

Passage of the Pyrenees and the Rhone. — Leaving a strong- 
force to garrison the newly conquered lands, and discharging 
10,000 more of his men who had begun to murmur because 
of their hardships, he pushed on with the remainder across 
the Pyrenees, and led them down into the Valley of the Rhone. 
The Gauls attempted to dispute the passage of the river, but 
they were routed, and the army was ferried across the stream 
in native boats and on rudely constructed rafts. 

* Smith's "Carthage and Rome," p. 114. 



290 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Passage of the Alps. — Hannibal now followed up the course 
of the Rhone, and then one of its eastern tributaries, the Isere, 
until he reached the foot-hills of the Alps, just beneath the pass 
of the Little St. Bernard. Nature and man joined to op- 
pose the passage. The season was already far advanced — it 
was October— and snow was falling upon the higher portions 
of the trail. Day after day the army toiled painfully up the 
dangerous path. In places the narrow way had to be cut wider 
for the monstrous bodies of the elephants. Often avalanches 
of stone were hurled upon the trains by the hostile bands that 
held possession of the heights above. At last the summit was 
gained, and the shivering army looked down into the warm 
haze of the Italian plains. The sight alone was enough to 
rouse the drooping spirits of the soldiers; but Hannibal stirred 
them to enthusiasm by addressing them with these words: 
"Ye are standing upon the Acropolis of Italy; yonder lies 
Rome." The army began its descent, and at length, after toils 
and losses equalled only by those of the ascent, its thinned bat- 
talions issued from the defiles of the mountains upon the plains 
of the Po. Of the fifty thousand men and more with which 
Hannibal had begun the passage, barely half that number had 
survived the march, and these " looked more like phantoms 
than men." 

Battles of the Ticinus, the Trebia, and of Lake Trasimenus. — 
The Romans had not the remotest idea of Hannibal's plans. 
With war determined upon, the Senate had sent one of the 
consuls, L. Sempronius Longus, with an army into Africa by 
the way of Sicily; while the other, Publius Cornelius Scipio, 
they had directed to lead another army into Spain. 

While the Senate were watching the movements of these ex- 
peditions, they were startled with the intelligence that Hanni- 
bal, instead of being in Spain, had crossed the Alps and was 
among the Gauls upon the Po. Sempronius was hastily re- 
called from his attempt upon Africa, to the defence of Italy. 



THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 29 1 

Scipio, on his way to Spain, had touched at Massilia, and there 
learned of the movements of Hannibal. He turned back, 
hurried into Northern Italy, and took command of the levies 
there. The cavalry of the two armies met upon the banks of 
the Ticinus, a tributary of the Po. The Romans were driven 
from the field by the fierce onset of the Numidian horsemen. 
Scipio now awaited the arrival of the other consular army, 
which was hurrying up through Italy by forced marches. 

In the battle of the Trebia the united armies of the two 
consuls were almost annihilated. The refugees that escaped 
from the field sought shelter behind the walls of Placentia. 
The Gauls, who had been waiting to see to which side fortune 
would incline, now flocked to the standard of Hannibal, and 
hailed him as their deliverer. 

The spring following the victory at the Trebia, Hannibal led 
his army, now recruited by many Gauls, across the Apennines, 
and moved southward. At Lake Trasimenus he entrapped the 
Romans under Flaminius in a mountain defile, where, bewil- 
dered by a fog that filled the valley, the greater part of the 
army were slaughtered, and the consul himself was slain. 

Hannibal's Policy. — The way to Rome was now open. Be- 
lieving that Hannibal would march directly upon the capital, 
the Senate caused the bridges that spanned the Tiber to be 
destroyed, and appointed Fabius Maximus dictator. But Han- 
nibal did not deem it wise to throw his troops against the walls 
of Rome. Crossing the Apennines, he touched the Adriatic at 
Picenum, whence he sent messages to Carthage of his wonder- 
ful achievements. Here he rested his army after a march that 
has few parallels in the annals of war. 

In one respect only had events disappointed Hannibal's ex- 
pectations. He had thought that all the states of Italy were, 
like the Gauls, ready to revolt from Rome at the first oppor- 
tunity that might offer itself. But not a single city had thus 
far proved unfaithful to Rome. The aid which Hannibal ex- 



292 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

pected from the Italians, and which he invited by the kindest 
treatment of those who fell into his hands as prisoners, he was 
destined never to receive. 

Fabius the Delayer. — The dictator Fabius, at the head of 
four new legions, started in pursuit of Hannibal, who was again 
on the move. The fate of Rome was in the hands of Fabius. 
Should he risk a battle and lose it, the destiny of the capital 
would be sealed. He determined to adopt a more prudent 
policy — to follow and annoy the Carthaginian army, but to re- 
fuse all proffers of battle. Thus time might be gained for 
raising a new army and perfecting measures for the public de- 
fence. In every possible way Hannibal endeavored to draw 
his enemy into an engagement. He ravaged the fields far and 
wide and fired the homesteads of the Italians, in order to force 
Fabius to fight in their defence. The soldiers of the dictator 
began to murmur. They called him the Cunctator, or " De- 
layer." They even accused him of treachery to the cause of 
Rome. But nothing moved him from the steady pursuit of the 
policy which he clearly saw was the only prudent one to follow. 
Hannibal marched through Samnium, desolating the country 
as he went, and then descended upon the rich plains of Cam- 
pania. Fabius followed him closely, and from the mountains 
which he would not allow his soldiers to leave they were 
obliged to watch, with such calmness as they might command, 
the devastations of the enemy going on beneath their very 
eyes. They besought Fabius to lead them down upon the 
plain, where they might at least strike a blow in defence of their 
homes. Fabius was unmoved by their clamor. He planned, 
however, to entrap Hannibal. Knowing that the enemy could 
not support themselves in Campania through the approaching 
winter, but must recross the mountains into Apulia, he placed 
a strong guard in the pass by which they must retreat, and 
then quietly awaited their movements. Hannibal resorted to 
stratagem to draw away the defenders of the mountain path. 



THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 293 

To the horns of two thousand oxen he caused burning torches 
to be fastened, and then these animals were driven one night 
up among the hills that overhung the pass. These creatures, 
frantic with pain and fright, rushed along the ranges that bor- 
dered the pass, and led the watchers there to believe that the 
Carthaginians were forcing their way over the hills in a grand 
rush. Straightway the guardians of the pass left their posi- 
tion, to intercept the flying enemy. While they were pursuing 
the cattle, Hannibal marched quietly with all his booty through 
the unguarded defile, and escaped into Samnium. 

The Policy of Fabius Vindicated. — The escape of the Car- 
thaginian army caused the smothered discontent with Fabius 
and his policy to break out into open opposition, both among 
the citizens at the capital and the soldiers in the camp. Minu- 
cius, commander of the cavalry, disobeyed the orders of the 
dictator to refrain from any engagement with the enemy, and 
was so fortunate as to gain a slight success. This brought 
matters to a crisis. By a vote of the public assembly Minucius 
was made co-dictator with Fabius. He now sought an engage- 
ment with the Carthaginians. An opportunity soon presented 
itself. But fortune was against him ; and had it not been for 
the timely assistance of Fabius, his forces would have been cut 
to pieces. Minucius at once acknowledged the rashness of his 
policy, and took again his old position as a subordinate; while 
Fabius, by universal acclamation, was declared the "Saviour 
of Rome." 

The Battle of Cannae.— The time gained by Fabius had en- 
abled the Romans to raise and discipline an army that might 
hope to combat successfully the Carthaginian forces. Early 
in the summer of the year 216 B.C., these new levies, number- 
ing 80,000 men, confronted the army of Hannibal, amounting 
to not more than half that number, at Cannae, in Apulia. It 
was the largest army the Romans had ever gathered on any 



294 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

battle-field. But it had been collected only to meet the most 
overwhelming defeat that ever befell the forces of the republic. 
Through the skilful manoeuvres of Hannibal, the Romans were 
completely surrounded, and huddled together in a helpless 
mass upon the field, and then for eight hours were cut down by 
the Numidian cavalry. From fifty to seventy thousand were 
slain; a few thousand were taken prisoners; only the merest 
handful escaped, including one of the consuls, Varro. The 
consul Paullus, Minucius, the two questors, twenty-one tribunes, 
seventy senators, and an innumerable body of titled nobles 
were killed. "So many knights lay dead that, as the story 
goes, Mayo, when sent some time afterwards by Hannibal to 
Carthage with the tidings of the victory, emptied on the floor 
of the Senate-house three bushels of golden rings taken from 
equestrian fingers."* 

Events after the Battle of Cannae. — The awful news flew to 
Rome. Consternation and despair seized the people. The 
city would have been emptied of its population had not the 
Senate ordered the gates to be closed. Never did that body 
display greater calmness, wisdom, prudence, and resolution. 
By word and act they bade the people never despair of the re- 
public. Little by little the panic was allayed. Measures were 
concerted for the defence of the capital, as it was expected 
that Hannibal would immediately march upon Rome. " Mes- 
sengers were sent along the southern military road to see, as 
Livy pathetically expressed it, ' if the gods, touched by one 
pang of pity, had left aught remaining to the Roman name,' and 
to bring the first tidings of the expected advance of Hannibal." 
The leader of the Numidian cavalry, Maharbal, urged Hanni- 
bal to follow up closely his victory. " Let me advance with the 
cavalry," said he, "and in five clays you shall dine in the capi- 
tal." But Hannibal refused to adopt the counsel of his im- 

* Smith's " Carthage and Rome," p. 161. 



THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 295 

petuous general. Maharbal turned away, and, with mingled 
reproach and impatience, exclaimed, " Alas ! thou knowest how 
to gain a victory, but not how to use one." The great com- 
mander, while he knew he was invincible in the open field, did 
not think it prudent to fight the Romans behind their walls. 

Hannibal now sent an embassy to Rome to offer terms of 
peace. The Senate, true to the Appian policy never to treat 
with a victorious enemy, would not even permit the ambassa- 
dors to enter the gates. Not less disappointed was Hannibal 
in the temper of the Roman allies. For the most part they 
adhered to the cause of Rome with unshaken loyalty through 
all these trying times. Some tribes in the South of Italy, how- 
ever, among which were the Lucanians, the Apulians, and the 
Bruttians, went over to the Carthaginians. Hannibal marched 
into Campania and quartered his army for the winter in the 
luxurious city of Capua, which had opened its gates to him. 
Here he rested and sent urgent messages to Carthage for re- 
inforcements, while Rome exhausted every resource in raising 
and equipping new levies, to take the place of the legions lost 
at Cannae. For several years there was an ominous lull in the 
war, while both parties were gathering strength for a renewal 
of the struggle. 

The Fall of Syracuse.— In the year 216 B.C., Hiero, King of 
Syracuse, who loved to call himself the friend and ally of the 
Roman people, died, and the government fell into the hands 
of a party unfriendly to the republic. An alliance was formed 
with Carthage, and Sicily was carried over to the side of the 
enemies of Rome. The movement was aided by forces sent 
from Africa, and the tide of war again overflowed the island 
that had been the theatre of the principal events of the first 
struggle between the rival cities. The Roman general Mar- 
cellus was intrusted with the task of reconquering the island. 
After reducing many towns, he at last laid siege to Syracuse. 

This noted capital was then one of the largest and richest 



296 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

cities of the Grecian world. Its walls were strong, and en- 
closed an area eighteen miles in circuit. For three years it 
held out against the Roman forces. It is said that Archimedes, 
the great mathematician, rendered great aid to the besieged 
with curious and powerful engines contrived by his genius. 
By means of cranes he lifted the Roman ships out of the water, 
and broke them to pieces ; and by the use of sun-glasses set 
fire to their galleys. But the city fell at last, and was given 
over to sack and pillage. Rome was adorned with the rare 
works of Grecian art — paintings and sculptures — which for cen- 
turies had been accumulating in this the oldest and most 
renowned of the colonies of ancient Hellas. Syracuse never 
recovered from the blow inflicted upon her at this time by the 
relentless Romans. The site of the city is to-day as desolate 
as that of Carthage. 

Fall of Capua: Hannibal before Rome. — Capua must next be 
punished for opening her gates and extending her hospitalities 
to the enemies of Rome. A line of circumvallation was drawn 
about the devoted city, and two Roman armies held it in close 
siege. Hannibal, ever faithful to his allies and friends, hastened 
to the relief of the Capuans. Unable to break the enemy's 
lines, he marched directly upon Rome, as if to make an attack 
upon that city, hoping thus to draw off the legions about Capua 
to the defence of the capital. In pursuance of this plan, he 
marched through Latium, sacking and burning the towns and 
villas as he advanced, and encamped, finally, within three miles 
of Rome. Meanwhile, a small body of soldiers, withdrawn from 
the army before Capua, were hurried over the Appian Way, 
and thrown into Rome, to strengthen the garrison. The Car- 
thaginian cavalry swept the country far and wide, burning what 
could not be carried into camp as booty. The "dread Han- 
nibal " himself rode alongside the walls of the hated city, and, 
tradition says, even hurled a defiant spear over the defences. 
The Romans certainly were trembling with fear \ yet Livy tells 



THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 297 

how they manifested their confidence in their affairs by selling 
at public auction the land upon which Hannibal was encamped. 
He in turn, in the same manner, disposed of the stores front- 
ing the Forum. The story is that there were eager purchasers 
in both cases. 

Failing to draw the legions from Capua as he had hoped, 
Hannibal now retired from before Rome, and, retreating into 
the southern part of Italy, abandoned Capua to its fate. It 
soon fell, and paid the penalty that Rome never failed to in- 
flict upon an unfaithful ally. The chief men in the city were 
put to death, and a large part of the inhabitants sold as slaves. 
Capua had aspired to the first place among the cities of Italy: 
scarcely more than the name of the ambitious capital now re- 
mained. 

Hasdrubal in Spain. — During aii the years Hannibal was 
waging war in Italy, his brother Hasdrubal was carrying on a 
desperate struggle with the Romans in Spain. His plan was 
to gather and lead an army into Italy to the aid of his brother. 
This the Romans made every effort to prevent. Hence, even 
while Hannibal was threatening Rome itself, we find the Sen- 
ate sending its best legions and generals across the sea into 
Spain. But Hasdrubal possessed much of the martial genius 
of his brother, and proved more than a match for the Scipios 
who commanded the Roman levies. Yet the fortunes of war 
were more fickle here than in Italy. At one time the Car- 
thaginians were almost driven out of the peninsula; and then 
the whole was regained by the genius of Hasdrubal, and the 
two Scipios were slain. Another army, under the command of 
P. Cornelius Scipio, was sent to regain it and keep Hasdrubal 
engaged. The war was renewed, but without decided results 
on either side, and Hasdrubal determined to leave its conduct 
to others, and go to the relief of his brother, who was sadly in 
need of aid ; for the calamities of war were constantly thinning 
his ranks. Like Pyrrhus, he had been brought to realize that 

14 



298 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

even constant victories won by the loss of soldiers that could 
not be replaced meant final defeat. 

Battle of Metaurus. — Hasdrubal followed the same route as 
had been taken by his brother Hannibal, and in the year 207 
B.C. descended from the Alps upon the plains of Northern Italy. 
Thence he advanced southward, while Hannibal moved north- 
ward from Bruttium to meet him. Rome made a last effort to 
ward off the double danger. One hundred and forty thousand 
men were put into the field. One of the consuls, C. Claudius 
Nero, was to obstruct Hannibal's march ; while the other, M. 
Livius, was to oppose Hasdrubal in the north. The great effort 
of the Roman generals was to prevent the junction of the armies 
of the two brothers. Hasdrubal pressed on southward and 
crossed the Metaurus. From here he sent a message to Han- 
nibal, appointing a meeting-place only two days' march from 
Rome. The messenger fell into the hands of the consul Nero. 
In a moment Nero's plan was formed. With seven thousand 
picked soldiers he hastened northward, to join the other consul 
and, with their united forces, to crush Hasdrubal before his 
brother should know of the movement. In a few days Nero 
reached the camp of his colleague Livius, in front of which lay 
the Carthaginian army. As the soldiers of Nero entered the 
camp of his associate in the night, Hasdrubal knew nothing of 
their arrival until the next morning, when he observed that the 
trumpet sounded twice from the enemy's camp. Fearing to 
risk a battle, he attempted to fall back across the Metaurus. 
Misled by his guides, he was forced to turn and give battle to 
the pursuing Romans. His army was entirely destroyed, and 
he himself was slain (207 B.C.). 

Nero now hurried back to face Hannibal, bearing with him 
the head of Hasdrubal. This bloody trophy he caused to be 
hurled into the Carthaginian camp. Upon recognizing the 
features of his brother, Hannibal exclaimed sadly, " Carthage, 
I see thy fate." 



THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 299 

War in Africa: Battle of Zama.— The defeat and death of 
Hasdrubal gave a different aspect to the war. Hannibal now 
drew back into the rocky peninsula of Bruttium, the southern- 
most point of Italy. There he faced the Romans like a lion 
at bay. No one dared attack him. It was resolved to carry 
the war into Africa, in hopes that the Carthaginians would be 
forced to call their great commander out of Italy to the defence 
of Carthage. Publius Cornelius Scipio, who after the departure 
of Hasdrubal from Spain had quickly brought the peninsula 
under the power of Rome, led the army of invasion. He had 
not been long in Africa before the Carthaginian Senate sent 
for Hannibal to conduct the war. At Zama, not far from Car- 
thage, the hostile armies came face to face. Fortune had de- 
serted Hannibal ; he was fighting against Fate. He here met 
his first and final defeat. His army, in which were many of 
the veterans that had served through all the Italian campaigns, 
was almost annihilated (202 B.C.). 

The Close of the War. — Carthage was now completely ex- 
hausted, and sued for peace. Even Hannibal himself could 
no longer counsel war. The terms of the treaty were much 
severer than those imposed upon the city at the end of the 
First Punic War. She was required to give up all claims to 
Spain and the islands of the Mediterranean; to surrender her 
war elephants, and all her ships of war save ten galleys ; to 
pay an indemnity of five thousand talents at once, and two 
hundred and fifty talents annually for fifty years ; and not to 
engage in any war without the consent of Rome. Five hun- 
dred of the costly Phoenician war-galleys were towed out of the 
harbor of Carthage and burned in the sight of the citizens. 

Such was the end of the Second Punic, or Hannibalic, War, 
as called by the Romans, the most desperate struggle ever 
maintained by rival powers for empire. Scipio was accorded a 
splendid triumph at Rome, and given the surname Africanus 
in honor of his achievements. 



300 ANCIENT HISTORY. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE THIRD PUNIC WAR. 
(149-146 B.C.) 

Events between the Second and Third Punic Wars. 

The terms imposed upon Carthage at the end of the Second 
Punic War left Rome mistress of the Western Mediterranean. 
During the fifty eventful years that elapsed between the close 
of that struggle and the breaking-out of the last Punic war, 
her authority became supreme also in the Eastern seas. In a 
preceding chapter, while narrating the fortunes of the most im- 
portant states into which the great empire of Alexander was 
broken at his death, we followed them until one after another 
they fell beneath the arms of Rome, and were successively ab- 
sorbed into her growing kingdom. We shall therefore speak 
of them here only in the briefest manner, simply indicating the 
connection of their several histories with the series of events 
which mark the advance of Rome to universal empire. 

The Battle of Gynoseephalas (197 b.c.).— During the Hanni- 
balic War, Philip of Macedonia had aided the Carthaginians, or 
at least had entered into an alliance with them. He was now 
troubling the Greek cities which were under the protection of 
Rome. For these things the Roman Senate determined to 
punish him. An army under Flaminius was sent into Greece, 
and on the plains of Cynoscephalae, in Thessaly, the Roman 
legion demonstrated its superiority over the unwieldy Mace- 
donian phalanx by subjecting Philip to a most disastrous 
defeat (197 B.C.). The king was forced to give up all his 
conquests, and Rome extended her protectorate over Greece. 



THE THIRD PUNIC WAR. 3OI 

The Battle of Magnesia (190 b.c.). — Antiochus the Great 
of Syria had at this time not only overrun all Asia Minor, but 
had crossed the Hellespont into Europe, and was intent upon 
the conquest of Thrace and Greece. Rome, who could not en- 
tertain the idea of a rival empire upon the southern shores of 
the Mediterranean, could much less tolerate the establishment 
in the East of such a colossal kingdom as the ambition of An- 
tiochus proposed to itself. Just as soon as intelligence was 
carried to Italy that the Syrian king was leading his army into 
Greece, the legions of the republic were set in motion. Some 
reverses caused Antiochus to retreat in haste across the Helles- 
pont into Asia, whither he was followed by the Romans, led by 
Scipio, brother of Africanus. 

At Magnesia Antiochus was overthrown, and a large part of 
Asia Minor fell into the hands of the Romans. Not yet pre- 
pared to maintain provinces so distant from the Tiber, the 
Senate conferred the new territory, with the exception of Lycia 
and Caria, which were given to the Rhodians, upon their friend 
and ally Eumenes, King of Pergamus. This " Kingdom of 
Asia," as it was called, was really nothing more than a depend- 
ency of Rome, and its nominal ruler only a puppet-king in the 
hands of the Roman Senate. 

Scipio enjoyed a magnificent triumph at Rome, and, in ac- 
cordance with a custom that had now become popular with suc- 
cessful generals, erected a memorial of his deeds in his name 
by assuming the title of Asiaticus. 

The Battle of Pydna (168 b.c). — In a few years Macedon, 
under the leadership of Perseus, son of Philip, was again in 
arms and offering defiance to Rome; but in the year 168 B.C. 
the Roman consul ^Emilius Paulus crushed the Macedonian 
power forever upon the famous field of Pydna. This was one 
of the decisive battles fought by the Romans in their struggle 
for the dominion of the world. The last great power in the 
East was here broken. The Roman Senate was henceforth 



302 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

recognized by the whole civilized world as the source and 
fountain of supreme political wisdom and power. We shall 
have yet to record many campaigns of the Roman legions; 
but these were efforts to suppress revolt among dependent or 
semi-vassal states, or were struggles with marauding tribes 
that skirted the Roman dominions. 

The Destruction of Corinth (146 b.c). — Barely twenty years 
had passed after the destruction of the Macedonian monarchy 
before the cities and states that formed the Achaean League 
were goaded to revolt by the injustice of their Roman protec- 
tors. In the year 146 B.C. the consul Mummius signalized the 
suppression of the rebellion by the complete destruction of the 
brilliant city of Corinth, the " eye of Hellas," as the ancient 
poets were fond of calling it. This fair capital, the most beau- 
tiful and renowned of all the cities of Greece after the fall of 
Athens, was sacked and razed to the ground. Much of the 
booty was sold on the spot at public auction. Numerous 
works of art — rare paintings and sculptures — with which the 
city was crowded, were carried off to Italy. "Never before 
nor after," says Long, " was such a display of the wonders 
of Grecian art carried in triumphal procession through the 
streets of Rome." 

The Fate of Hannibal and Scipio. — Among the many events 
that crowded the brief period we are reviewing, we must not 
fail to notice the fate of the two great actors in the Hannibalic 
War. Soon after the battle of Zama, and the treaty between 
Carthage and Rome, Hannibal was chosen to the chief magis- 
tracy of the former city. In this position he introduced much- 
needed reform into every department of the government, and 
secured to the capital a period of prosperity and rapid growth. 
But his measures stirred up not only enmity at home, but 
jealousy at Rome. The Roman Senate, fearing Hannibal as 
a statesman equally as much as they dreaded him as a general, 



THE THIRD PUNIC WAR. 7>°3 

demanded of the Carthaginians his surrender. While they 
were deliberating whether to give up their great commander, 
Hannibal fled across the seas to Ephesus, in Asia Minor. 
Here he was received by Antiochus with such marks of honor 
as became his deeds and genius. 

Upon the defeat of Antiochus at Magnesia, the Romans de- 
manded that Hannibal should be given up to them. Again 
the exile fled from his implacable foes, and at last found a 
refuge with the prince of Bithynia, in the remotest corner of 
Asia Minor. Yet even thither Roman hatred pursued him. It 
seemed as though there were no spot in all the world whither 
the arm of Rome did not reach. His new friend could not 
shield him; and, determined not to fall into the hands of 
his foes, Hannibal took his own life by means of poison, and 
died faithful to his vow of eternal hatred to the Roman 
race (183 B.C.). 

Almost equally bitter was the cup which the ungrateful 
Romans forced to the lips of the conqueror of Hannibal. 
After the battle of Zama, Scipio Africanus gave himself to poli- 
tics, but soon raised about himself a perfect storm of unmerited 
abuse and persecution. Leaving Rome, he went into a sort 
of voluntary exile at his country-seat near Liternum, in Cam- 
pania. He died the same year that witnessed the death of 
Hannibal. Upon his tomb was placed this inscription, which 
he himself had dictated : " Ungrateful country, thou shalt not 
possess even my ashes." 

The Third Punic War. 
"Carthage Must be Destroyed."— The same year that Rome 
destroyed Corinth (146 B.C.), she also blotted her great rival 
Carthage from the face of the earth. It will be recalled that 
one of the conditions imposed upon the last-named city at the 
close of the Second Punic War was that she should, under no 
circumstances, engage in any war without the permission of the 
Roman Senate. Taking advantage of the helpless condition 



304 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

of Carthage, Masinissa, King of Numidia, began to make dep- 
redations upon her territories. She appealed to Rome for pro- 
tection. The envoys sent to Africa by the Senate to settle 
the dispute unfairly adjudged every case in favor of the rob- 
ber Masinissa. In this way Carthage was deprived of her 
lands and towns. 

Chief of one of the embassies sent out was Marcus Cato, the 
famous censor. When he saw the prosperity of Carthage — 
her immense trade, which crowded her harbor with ships, and 
the country for miles back of the city a beautiful landscape of 
gardens and villas — he was amazed at the growing power and 
wealth of the city, and returned home convinced that the safety 
of Rome demanded the destruction of her rival. Never after- 
wards did he address the Romans, no matter upon what sub- 
ject, but he always ended with the words, " Carthage must 
be destroyed." * 

Roman Perfidy. — A pretext for the accomplishment of the 
hateful work was not long wanting. In 150 B.C. the Cartha- 
ginians, when Masinissa made another attack upon their terri- 
tory, instead of calling upon Rome, from which source the past 
had convinced them they could hope for neither aid nor justice, 
gathered an army, and resolved to defend themselves. Their 
forces, however, were defeated by the Numidian, and sent be- 
neath the yoke. 

In entering upon this war without the consent of Rome, 
Carthage had broken the conditions of the last treaty. The 
Carthaginian Senate, in great anxiety, now sent an embassy to 
Italy to offer any reparation the Romans might demand. They 
were told that if they would give three hundred hostages, mem- 
bers of the noblest Carthaginian families, their city should be 
spared. They eagerly complied with this demand. But no 
sooner were these in the hands of the Romans than the consular 

* " Delenda est Carthago." 



THE THIRD PUNIC WAR. 305 

armies, numbering eighty thousand men, secured against attack 
by the hostages so perfidiously drawn from the Carthaginians, 
crossed from Sicily into Africa, and disembarked at Utica, 
only ten miles from Carthage. 

The Carthaginians were now commanded to give up all their 
arms; still hoping to win their enemy to clemency, they com- 
plied with this demand also. Then the consuls made known 
the final decree of the Roman Senate — " That Carthage must 
be destroyed, but that the inhabitants might build a new city, 
provided it were located ten miles from the coast." 

When this resolution of the Senate was announced to the 
Carthaginians, and they realized the baseness and perfidy of 
their enemy, a cry of indignation and despair burst from the 
betrayed city. 

The Carthaginians Prepare to Defend their City. — It was 
resolved to resist to the bitter end the execution of the cruel 
decree. The gates of the city were closed. Men, women, and 
children set to work and labored day and night manufacturing 
arms. The entire city was converted into one great workshop. 
The utensils of the home and the sacred vessels of the tem- 
ples, statues and vases, were melted down for weapons. Ma- 
terial was torn from the buildings of the city for the construc- 
tion of military engines. The women cut off their hair and 
braided it into strings for the catapults. By such labor, and 
through such means, the city was soon put in a state to with- 
stand a siege. 

When the Romans advanced to take possession of the place, 
they were astonished to find the people they had just treacher- 
ously disarmed, with weapons in their hands, manning the walls 
of their capital, and ready to bid them defiance. 

The Destruction of Carthage.— It is impossible for us here to 
give the circumstances of the siege of Carthage. For four years 
the city held out against the Roman army. At length the 

i 4 * 



306 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

consul Scipio .Kmilianus succeeded in taking it by storm. 
When resistance ceased, only 50,000 men, women, and chil- 
dren, out of a population of 700,000, remained to be made pris- 
oners. The city was tired, and for seventeen days the space 
within the walls was a sea of flames. Every trace of building 
which the tire could not destroy was levelled, a plough was 
driven over the site, and a dreadful curse invoked upon any 
one who should dare attempt to rebuild the city. 

Such was the hard fate of Carthage. So cruel a fortune were 
enough to move any heart, however steeled against sentiments 
of pity. We can easily believe that Polybius was only faith- 
fully narrating what he observed when he says that, as Scipio 
gazed upon the smouldering ruins, he seemed to read in them 
the fate oi Rome, and, bursting into tears, sadly repeated, half 
to himself, the lines of Homer : 

" The day shall come in which our sacred Troy, 
And Priam, and the people over whom 
Spear-bearing Priam rules, shall perish all.'' 

The Carthaginian territory in Africa was made into a Ro- 
man province, with Utica as the leading city ; and Roman civ- 
ilization was spread rapidly, by means of traders and settlers, 
throughout the regions that lie between the range of the Atlas 
and the sea. 

War in Spain. 

Siege of Numantia.— It is fitting that the same chapter which 
narrates the destruction of Corinth in Greece, and the blotting- 
out of Carthage in Africa, should tell the story of the destruc- 
tion of Numantia in Spain. 

The expulsion of the Carthaginians from the Spanish penin- 
sula really gave Rome the control of only a small part of that 
country. The warlike native tribes — the Celtiberians and 
Lusitanians — of the North and West were ready stubbornly 
to dispute with the new-comers the possession of the soil. The 
treachery of the Roman generals inflamed the natives to a des- 



THE THIRD PUNIC WAR. 307 

perate revolt under Viriathus, a Lusitanian chief, who has 
been compared in his character and deeds to Wallace of Scot- 
land. Finally Scipio Africanus was given the chief command. 
He began by reforming the army, which had become shame- 
fully dissolute. The crowds of merchants were driven out of 
the camp; the wagons in which the effeminate soldiers were 
accustomed to ride were sold, and once more the Roman le- 
gions marched, instead of riding, to battle. The legionaries 
were further inured to the labors incident to a campaign by 
being set to the work of building up and tearing down walls, 
just for the exercise. 

With the army in proper discipline for service, Scipio rein- 
vested Numantia, which had already withstood nine years of 
siege. The brave defenders numbered barely 8000 men, while 
the lines of circumvallation that hedged them in were kept by 
60,000 soldiers. Famine at last gave the place into the hands 
of Scipio, after almost all the inhabitants had met death, either 
in defence of the walls, or by deliberate suicide. The misera- 
ble remnant which the ravages of battle, famine, pestilence, and 
despair had left alive were sold into slavery, and the city was 
levelled to the ground (133 B.C.). 

The capture of Numantia was considered quite as great an 
achievement as the taking of Carthage. Scipio celebrated an- 
other triumph at Rome, and to his surname Africanus added 
that of Numantinus. Spain became a favorite resort of Roman 
merchants, and many colonies were established in different 
parts of the country. As a result of this great influx of Italians, 
the laws, manners, customs, language, and religion of the con- 
querors were introduced everywhere, and the peninsula became 
rapidly Romanized. 



303 ANCIENT HISTORY. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 
(133-31 B.C.) 

We have now traced the growth of the power of republican 
Rome, as through two centuries and more of conquest she has 
extended her authority, first throughout Italy, and then over all 
the countries that border upon the Mediterranean. It must be 
our less pleasant task now to follow the declining fortunes of 
the republic through the last century of its existence. We 
shall here learn that wars waged for spoils and dominion are 
at the last more ruinous, if possible, to the conqueror than to 
the conquered. 

The Servile War in Sicily (134-132 b.c.).— With the opening 
of this period we find a terrible struggle going on in Sicily be- 
tween masters and slaves — what is known as " The Servile 
War." The condition of affairs in that island was the legiti- 
mate result of the Roman system of slavery. The captives 
taken in war were usually sold into servitude. The great num- 
ber of prisoners furnished by the numerous conquests of the 
Romans caused slaves to become a drug in the slave-markets 
of the Roman world. They were so cheap that masters found 
it more profitable to wear their slaves out by a few years of un- 
mercifully hard labor, and then to buy others, than to preserve 
their lives for a longer period by more humane treatment. In 
case of sickness, they were left to die without attention, as the 
expense of nursing exceeded the cost of new purchases. Some 
Sicilian estates were worked by as many as 20,000 slaves. 
That each owner might know his own, the poor creatures were 



THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 309 

branded like cattle. What makes all this the more revolting is 
the fact that many of these slaves were in every way the peers 
of their owners, and often were infinitely their superiors. The 
fortunes of war alone had made one servant and the other 
master. 

A considerable portion of the estates in Sicily were simply 
grazing-farms, their proprietors finding the raising of wool for 
the clothing of the Roman legions more profitable than the cul- 
tivation of grain. The slaves that tended the flocks on these 
farms received from their masters neither pay, food, nor cloth- 
ing. They were expected to supply their needs from the herds 
they tended, and by robbing travellers on the highways and 
plundering the dwellings of the peasants. They were well 
armed, and were always accompanied by fierce dogs. The 
magistrates dared not punish them for their misdeeds, through 
fear of their masters, who were all-powerful at Rome. 

The wretched condition of these slaves and the cruelty of 
their masters finally drove them to revolt. They were headed 
by Eunus, a sort of Asiatic juggler — he was a Syrian by birth — 
who secured the respect and admiration of his followers by 
"spouting flames from his mouth," and by other performances 
familiar to the profession of which he seems to have been mas- 
ter. The insurrection spread throughout the island, until 
200,000 slaves were in arms, and in possession of many of the 
strongholds of the country. They defeated four Roman armies 
sent against them, and for three years defied the power of 
Rome. Finally, however, in the year 132 B.C., the revolt was 
crushed by Publius Rupilius, and peace was restored to the 
distracted island.* 

The Public Lands. — In Italy itself affairs were in a scarcely 
less wretched condition than in Sicily. When the different 

* In the year 102 B.C. another insurrection of the slaves broke out in the 
island, which it required three years to quell. This last revolt is known as 
" The Second Servile War." 



310 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

states of the peninsula were subjugated, large portions of the 
conquered territory had become public land (ager publicus) ; 
for upon the subjugation of a state Rome never left to the con- 
quered people more than two thirds of their lands, and often 
not so much as this. The land appropriated was disposed of 
at public sale, leased at low rentals, allotted to discharged 
soldiers, or allowed to lie unused. Much of this public domain, 
it will thus be seen, was under the control of the state as lessor, 
or remained in its absolute possession.* 

Now, it had happened that, in various ways, almost all these 
public lands had fallen into the hands of the wealthy. They 
alone had the capital necessary to stock and work them to ad- 
vantage; hence the possessions of the small proprietors were 
gradually absorbed by the large landholders. Often the fami- 
lies of the poor were ejected from their little plots of land by 
fraud while the father was away in the army; as Ahab had got 
possession of the garden of Naboth. Horace draws a pathetic 
picture of such an evicted family, " carrying with them the little 
images their fathers venerated and their poor dirty children." f 

These great proprietors, also, disregarding a law which for- 
bade any person to hold more than three hundred jugera of 
land, held many times that amount. Almost all the lands of 
Italy, about the beginning of the first century B.C., are said to 
have been held by not more than two thousand persons ; for 
the large proprietors, besides the lands they had secured by 
purchase from the government, or had wrested from the smaller 
farmers, claimed enormous tracts to which they had only a 
squatter's title. So long had they been left in undisturbed 
possession of these government lands that they had come to 
look upon them as absolutely their own. In many cases, feel- 

* These land matters may be made plain by a reference to the public 
lands of the United States, and the management of them. The troubles in 
Ireland between the land-owners and their tenants will also serve to illus- 
trate the agrarian disturbances in ancient Rome. 

t Quoted by Long in " Decline of Roman Republic," p. 173. 



THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 31I 

ing secure through great lapse of time —the lands having been 
handed down through many generations — the owners had ex- 
pended large sums in their improvement, and now resisted as 
very unjust every effort to dispossess them of their hereditary 
estates. Money-lenders, too, had, in many instances, made 
loans upon these lands, and they naturally sided with the own- 
ers in their opposition to all efforts to disturb the titles. 

These wealthy "possessors" employed slave rather than 
free labor, as they found it more profitable ; and so the poorer 
Romans, left without employment, crowded into the cities, es- 
pecially congregating at Rome, where they lived in vicious in- 
dolence. The proprietors also found it to their interest to raise 
stock rather than to cultivate the soil. All Italy became a 
great sheep-walk. An old Roman writer says that the country 
from an agricultural state had slipped back into the pastoral. 

Thus, largely through the workings of the public land system, 
the Roman people had become divided into two great classes, 
which are variously designated as the Rich and the Poor, the 
Possessors and the Non-Possessors, the Optimates (the "Best ") 
and the Populares (the " People "). We hear nothing more of 
patricians and plebeians. As one expresses it, " Rome had 
become a commonwealth of millionaires and beggars." 

For many years before and after the period at which we have 
now arrived, a bitter struggle was carried on between these 
two classes; just such a contest as we have seen waged be- 
tween the nobility and commonalty in the earlier history of 
Rome. The most instructive portion of the story of the Ro- 
man republic is found in the records of this later struggle. 
The misery of the great masses naturally led to constant agi- 
tation at the capital. Popular leaders introduced bill after bill 
into the Senate, and brought measure after measure before the 
assemblies of the people, all aiming at the redistribution of the 
public lands and the correction of existing abuses. 

The Reforms of the Gracchi. — The two most famous cham- 



312 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

pions of the cause of the poorer classes against the rich and 
powerful were Tiberius and Caius Gracchus. These reformers 
are reckoned among the most popular orators that Rome ever 
produced. They eloquently voiced the wrongs of the people. 
Said Tiberius, " You are called ' lords of the earth ' without 
possessing a single clod to call your own." The people made 
him tribune; and in that position he secured the passage of 
a law for the redistribution of the public lands, which gave 
some relief. It took away from the Possessors all the land 
they held over five hundred jugera, and forced them to employ 
a certain number of Roman freemen in place of slaves. 

At the end of his term of office, Tiberius stood a second time 
for the tribunate. The nobles combined to defeat him. Ti- 
berius now resorted to unworthy means to excite the sympathy 
and passions of the people. He put on mourning, and asserted 
that his and the people's enemies were plotting his death. 
Great multitudes attended him wherever he went, escorting 
him home at night with music and torches. Foreseeing that 
he would fail to be re-elected, Tiberius resolved to use force 
upon the day of voting. His partisans were overpowered, 
and he and three hundred of his followers were killed in the 
Forum, and their bodies thrown into the Tiber. This was the 
first time that the Roman Forum had witnessed such a scene 
of violence and crime. 

Tiberius was in the wrong. His error was in supposing that 
the end justified the instrument used. He sought " to advance 
the best of causes by the most violent of means." His own 
brother-in-law, Scipio Africanus, when the news of the tumult 
and of the death of Tiberius was carried to him at Numantia, 
exclaimed, " So perish all who do the like again." 

Caius Gracchus, the younger brother of Tiberius, now as- 
sumed the position made vacant by the death of Tiberius. It 
is related that Caius had a dream in which the spirit of his 
brother seemed to address him thus : " Caius, why do you 
linger? There is no escape: one life for both of us, and one 



THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 313 

death in defence of the people, is our fate." The dream came 
true. Caius was chosen tribune in 123 B.C. He secured the 
passage of corn-laws which provided that corn should be sold 
to the poor from public granaries, at half its value or less. 
This was a very unwise and pernicious measure. It was not 
long before corn was distributed free to all applicants ; and a 
considerable portion of the population of the capital were liv- 
ing in vicious indolence and feeding at the public crib. 

Caius proposed other measures in the interest of the people, 
which were bitterly opposed by the Optimates; and the two 
orders at last came into collision. Caius sought death by a 
friendly sword, and three thousand of his adherents were mas- 
sacred. The consul offered for the head of Caius its weight 
in gold. " This is the first instance in Roman history of head- 
money being offered and paid, but it was not the last " (Long). 

The people ever regarded the Gracchi as martyrs to their 
cause, and their memory was preserved by statues in the pub- 
lic square. To Cornelia, their mother, a monument was 
erected, bearing the simple inscription, " The Mother of the 
Gracchi." 

The War with Jugurtha (111-106 b.c.).— After the death of 
the Gracchi there seemed no one left to resist the heartless op- 
pressions and to denounce the scandalous extravagances of the 
aristocratical party. Many of the laws of the Gracchi respect- 
ing the public lands were annulled. Italy fell again into the 
hands of a few over-rich land-owners. The provinces were 
plundered by the Roman governors, who squandered their ill- 
gotten wealth at the capital. The votes of senators and the 
decisions of judges, the offices at Rome and the places in the 
provinces — everything pertaining to the government had its 
price, and was bought and sold like merchandise. Affairs in 
Africa at this time illustrate how Roman virtue and integrity 
had declined since Fabricius indignantly refused the gold of 
Pyrrhus. 



314 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Jugurtha, king of Numidia, had seized all that country, hav- 
ing put to death the rightful rulers of different provinces of the 
same, who had been confirmed in their possessions by the Ro- 
mans at the close of the Punic wars. Commissioners sent 
from Rome to look into the matter were bribed by Jugurtha. 
Finally, the Numidian robber, in carrying out some of his high- 
handed measures, put to death some Italian merchants. War 
was immediately declared by the Roman Senate, and the con- 
sul Bestia was sent into Africa with an army, to punish the in- 
solent usurper. Bestia sold himself to Jugurtha, and, instead 
of chastising him, confirmed him in his stolen possessions. 
We should naturally suppose that the Senate would have ad- 
ministered some wholesome correction to the mercenary consul 
upon his return. But the wily general had anticipated this, and 
had taken with him the president of that body, and had divided 
with him the spoils. 

The indignation of the people, who had good reason to sus- 
pect the real state of affairs, was great. They demanded that 
Jugurtha, with the promise of immunity to himself, should be 
invited to Rome, and encouraged to disclose the whole trans- 
action, in order that those who had betrayed the state for 
money might be punished. Jugurtha came; but the gold of 
the consul and president bribed one of the tribunes to pro- 
hibit the king from giving his testimony. 

Now it so happened that there was in Rome at this time a 
rival claimant of the Numidian throne, who at this very mo- 
ment was urging his claims before the Senate. Jugurtha 
caused this rival to be assassinated. As he himself was under 
a safe-conduct, the Senate could do nothing to punish the au- 
dacious deed and to resent the insult to the state, save by 
ordering the king to depart from the city at once. As he 
passed the gates, it is said that he looked scornfully back upon 
the capital and exclaimed, " O venal city ! destined quickly to 
perish whenever a purchaser shall be found for thee." 

Upon the renewal of the war another Roman army was sent 



THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 315 

into Africa, but was defeated, and forced beneath the yoke. 
In the year 106 B.C. the war was brought to a close by Caius 
Marius, a man who had risen to the consulship from the low- 
est ranks of the people. Under him fought a young nobleman 
named Sulla, of whom we shall hear much hereafter. Marius 
celebrated a grand triumph at Rome. Jugurtha, after having 
graced the triumphal procession, in which he walked with his 
hands bound with chains, was thrown into the Mamertine dun- 
geon beneath the Capitoline, where he died of starvation. 

Invasion of the Cimbri and Teutones. — The war was not yet 
ended in Africa before terrible tidings came to Rome from the 
north. Two mighty nations of "horrible barbarians," three 
hundred thousand strong in fighting-men, coming whence no 
one could tell, had invaded, and were now desolating, the Ro- 
man provinces of Gaul, and might any moment cross the Alps 
and pour down into Italy. 

The mysterious invaders proved to be two Germanic tribes, 
the Teutones and Cimbri, the vanguard of that great German 
migration which was destined to change the face and history 
of Europe. These intruders were seeking new homes, and 
were driven on, it would almost seem, by a blind and in- 
stinctive impulse. They carried with them, in rude wagons, all 
their property, their wives, and their children. The Celtic 
tribes of Gaul were no match for the new-comers, and fled be- 
fore them as they advanced. Several Roman armies beyond 
the Alps were cut to pieces. In one battle more than one 
hundred thousand Romans are said to have been slaughtered. 
The terror at Rome was only equalled by that occasioned by 
the invasion of the Gauls two centuries before. The Gauls 
were terrible enough ; but now the conquerors of the Gauls 
were coming. 

Marius, the conqueror of Jugurtha, was looked to by all as 
the only man who could save the state in this crisis. He was 
re-elected to the consulship, and intrusted with the command 



316 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

of the armies. Accompanied by Sulla as one of his most skil- 
ful lieutenants, Marius hastened into Northern Italy. The 
barbarians had divided into two bands. The Cimbri were to 
cross the Eastern Alps, and join in the Valley of the Po the 
Teutones, who were to force the defiles of the Western or 
Maritime Alps. Marius determined to prevent the union of 
the barbarians, and to crush each band separately. 

Anticipating the march of the Teutones, he hurried over the 
Alps into Gaul, and sat down in a fortified camp to watch their 
movements. Unable to storm the Roman position, the bar- 
barians resolved to leave their enemy in the rear and push on 
into Italy. For six days and nights the endless train of men 
and wagons rolled past the camp of Marius. The barbarians 
jeered at the Roman soldiers, and asked them if they had any 
messages they wished to send to their wives ; if so, they would 
bear them, as they would be in Rome shortly. Marius allowed 
them to pass by, and then, breaking camp, followed closely after. 
Falling upon them at a favorable moment, he almost annihi- 
lated the entire host.* Two hundred thousand barbarians are 
said to have been slain. Marius heaped together and burned 
the spoils of the battle-field. While engaged in this work, 
the news was brought to him of his re-election as consul for 
the fifth time. This was illegal; but the people felt that Ma- 
rius must be kept in the field. 

Marius now recrossed the Alps, and, after visiting Rome, 
hastened to meet the Cimbri, who were entering the north- 
eastern corner of Italy. He was not a day too soon. Already 
the barbarians had defeated the Roman army under the pa- 
trician Catulus, and were ravaging the rich plains of the Po. 
The Cimbri, unconscious of the fate of the Teutones, now sent 
an embassy to Marius, to demand that they and their kinsmen 
should be given lands in Italy. Marius sent back in reply, 
" The Teutones have got all the land they need on the other 

* In the battle of Aquae Sextiae, fought 102 B.C. 



THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 317 

side of the Alps." The devoted Cimbri were soon to have all 
they needed on this side. 

A terrible battle almost immediately followed at Vercellse 
(101 B.C.). The barbarians were drawn up in an enormous 
hollow square, the men forming the outer ranks being fastened 
together with chains, to prevent the lines being broken. This 
proved their ruin. More than 100,000 were killed, and 60,000 
taken prisoners to be sold as slaves in the Roman markets. 
Marius was hailed as the " Saviour of his Country." 

The fate of these two nations that were wandering over the 
face of the earth in search of homes is one of the most pathetic 
tales in all history. The almost innumerable host of wanderers, 
men, women, and children, now "rested beneath the sod, or 
toiled under the yoke of slavery: the forlorn-hope of the Ger- 
man migration had performed its duty; the homeless people 
of the Cimbri and their comrades were no more " (Mommsen). 
Their kinsmen yet behind the Danube and the Rhine were 
destined to exact a terrible revenge for their slaughter. 

The Social or Marsic War (91-89 b.c). — Scarcely was the 
danger of the barbarian invasion past before Rome was threat- 
ened by another and greater-peril arising within her own bor- 
ders. At this time all the free inhabitants of the Roman state 
were divided into citizens and aliens. The former included 
the inhabitants of the capital and of the various Roman colo- 
nies planted in different parts of the peninsula. The latter 
were divided into three classes : the Latins, who were the in- 
habitants of the old Latin towns and their colonies ; the socii, 
who included the different subjugated races of Italy; and the 
provincials, the free inhabitants of the provinces. 

The Social or Marsic War (as it is often called on account 
of the prominent part taken in the insurrection by the warlike 
Marsians) was a struggle made by the socii for the privileges of 
Roman citizenship. The policy of Rome throughout her long 
career of conquest had been based on the vicious maxim that 



3lS ANCIENT HISTORY. 

"to the victors belong the spoils." As the authority of the 
city had been gradually extended over the various cities and 
states of Italy, the thought of admitting the conquered peoples 
to the rights and immunities enjoyed by the citizens of the 
capital never occurred to the selfish and exclusive Romans. 
Indeed, the world had not yet come to regard the conquered 
as having any rights whatever. But these Italians were the 
same in race, language, and religion as their conquerors ; and 
it was their valor and blood that had helped Rome secure the 
dominion of the Mediterranean world. They were in every 
essential respect the equals of the Romans, and in many re- 
spects their superiors. Yet invidious and hateful distinctions 
separated them from the citizens of the capital. A Roman 
soldier could not be scourged ; but an alien might be whipped 
to death, and often was, without comment being excited or re- 
dress being possible. Naturally the Italians complained bit- 
terly of being taxed for the maintenance of laws and institu- 
tions which they could have no voice in establishing, and un- 
der which they could find no protection. 

The socii now demanded the Roman franchise and the immu- 
nities and privileges of citizens. The demand was stubbornly 
resisted by both the aristocratical and the popular party at 
Rome. Some, however, recognized the justice of these claims 
of the Italians. Drusus championed their cause, but was mur- 
dered by an infuriated mob. The Italians now flew to arms. 
They determined upon the establishment of a rival state. A 
town called Corfinium, among the Apennines, was chosen as 
the capital of the new republic, and its name changed to 
Italica. The government of the new state was modelled after 
that at Rome. Two consuls were placed at the head of the 
republic, and a senate of five hundred members was formed. 
Thus, in a single day, almost all Italy south of the Rubicon 
was lost to Rome. The Etrurians, the Umbrians, the Cam- 
panians, the Latins, and some of the Greek cities were the only 
states that remained faithful. 



THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 319 

The greatness of the danger aroused all the old Roman 
courage and patriotism. Aristocrats and democrats hushed 
their quarrels ; Sulla and Marius forgot rising animosities, 
and fought bravely side by side for the endangered life of the 
republic. An army of 100,000 men was raised to face a force 
equal in number and discipline that had been gathered by the 
new confederacy. The war lasted three years. Finally Rome 
prudently extended the right of the franchise to the Latins, 
Etruscans, and Umbrians, who had so far remained true to her, 
but now began to show signs of wavering in their loyalty. 
Shortly afterwards she offered the same to all Italians who 
should lay clown their arms within sixty clays. This tardy con- 
cession to the just demands of the Italians virtually ended the 
war. It had been extremely disastrous to the republic. Hun- 
dreds of thousands of lives had been lost, many towns had 
been depopulated, and vast tracts of the country made desolate 
by those ravages that never fail to characterize civil conten- 
tions. 

In after-years, under the empire, the rights of Roman cit- 
izenship, which the Italians had now so hardly won, were 
extended to all the free inhabitants of the various provinces 
beyond the confines of Italy. 

The Civil War of Marius and Sulla. — The Social War was not 
yet ended when a formidable enemy appeared in the East. 
Mithridates the Great, king of Pontus, taking advantage of 
the distracted condition of the republic, had encroached upon 
the Roman provinces in Asia Minor, and had caused a general 
massacre of the Italian traders and residents in that country. 
The number of victims of this wholesale slaughter has been 
variously estimated at from 80,000 to 150,000. The Roman 
Senate instantly declared war. But the Marsic struggle had 
drained the treasury. The money needed for equipping an 
army could only be raised by the sale of the vacant public 
ground about the Capitol building. 



320 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 



A contest straightway arose between Marius and Sulla for 
the command of the forces. The former was now an old man 
of seventy years, while the latter was but forty-nine. Marius 
could not endure the thought of being pushed aside by his 
former lieutenant. The veteran general joined with the young 
men in the games and exercises of the gymnasium, to show 
that the strength and agility of youth had yet the control of 
his frame. The Senate, however, conferred the command upon 
Sulla. Marius was furious at the success of his rival, and by 
fraud and intimidation succeeded in getting the command 
taken away from Sulla and given to himself. Two tribunes 
were sent to demand of Sulla, who was still in Italy, the trans- 
fer of the command of the legions to Marius; but the messen- 
gers were killed by the soldiers, who were devotedly attached 
to their commander. Sulla now saw that the sword must settle 
the dispute. He marched at the head of his legions upon 
Rome, entered the gates, and " for the first time in the annals 
of the city a Roman army encamped within the walls." The 
party of Marius was defeated, and he and ten of his compan- 
ions were proscribed. Marius escaped and fled to Africa; 
Sulla embarked with the legions to meet Mithridates in the 
East (87 b.c). 

The Wanderings of Marius. — Leaving Sulla to carry on the 
Mithridatic War, we must first follow the fortunes of the exiled 
Marius. The ship in which he fled to Italy was driven ashore 
at Circeii. Here Marius and the companions of his flight 
wandered about, sustained by the hope inspired by the good 
omen of the seven eaglets. As the story runs, Marius, when a 
boy, had captured an eagle's nest with seven young, and the 
augurs had said that this signified that he should be seven 
times consul. He had already held the office six times, and 
he firmly believed that the prophecy would be fulfilled as to 
the seventh. 

The pursuers of Marius at last found him hiding in a marsh, 



THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN . REPUBLIC. 32 1 

buried to his neck in mud and water. He was dragged before 
the authorities of the town of Minturnae. The magistrates, in 
obedience to the commands that had been sent everywhere, 
determined to put him to death. A Cimbrian slave was sent 
to despatch him. The cell where Marius lay was dark, and the 
eyes of the old soldier " seemed to flash fire." As the slave ad- 
vanced, Marius shouted, " Man, do you dare kill Caius Marius ?" 
The frightened slave dropped his sword, and fled from the 
chamber, half dead with fear. 

A better feeling now took possession of the men of Minturnae, 
and they resolved ihat the blood of the "Saviour of Italy" 
should not be upon their nands. Taev put h'm aboard a vessel, 
which bore him and his friends to an lsiand just off the coast 
of Africa. When he attempted to set foot upon the mainland 
near Carthage, Sextius, the Roman governor of the province, 
sent a messenger to forbid him to land. The legend says that 
the old general, almost choking with indignation, only answered, 
" Go, tell your master, that you have seen Marius a fugitive sit- 
ting amidst the ruins of Carthage." 

The Return of Marius to Italy. — The exile at length found a 
temporary refuge on the island of Cercina, off the coast of Tunis. 
Here news was brought to him that his party, under the lead 
of Cinna, was in successful revolt against the Optimates, and 
that he was needed. He immediately set sail for Italy, and, 
landing in Etruria, joined Cinna. Together they hoped to 
crush and exterminate the opposing faction. Rome was cut 
off from her food supplies, and starved into submission. 

Marius now took a terrible revenge upon his enemies. The 
consul Octavius was assassinated, and his head set up in front 
of the Rostrum. Never before had such a thing been seen at 
Rome — a consul's head exposed to the public gaze. The sena- 
tors, equestrians, and leaders of the Optimate party fled from 
the capital. For five days and nights a merciless slaughter 
was kept up. The life of every man in the capital was in the 

15 



322 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

hands of the revengeful Marius. If he refused to return the 
greeting of any citizen, that sealed his fate : he was instantly 
despatched by the soldiers who awaited the dictator's nod. The 
bodies of the victims lay unburied in the streets. Sulla's house 
was torn down, and he himself declared a public enemy. Dur- 
ing the tumult the slaves had armed themselves, and, imitating 
the example set before them, were rioting in murder and pil- 
lage. Marius, finding it impossible to restrain their maddened 
fury, turned his soldiers loose upon them, and they were massa- 
cred to a man. 

As a fitting sequel to all this violence, Marius and Cinna 
were, in an entirely illegal way, declared consuls. The prophecy 
of the eaglets was fulfilled: Marius was consul for the seventh 
time. But rumors were now spread that Sulla, having over- 
thrown Mithridates, was about to set out on his return with his 
victorious legions. He would surely exact speedy and terrible 
vengeance. Marius, now old and enfeebled by the hardships 
of many campaigns, seemed to shrink from facing again his 
hated rival. He plunged into dissipation to drown his remorse 
and gloomy forebodings, and died in his seventy-first year (86 
B.C.), after having held his seventh consulship only thirteen 
days. 

Sulla and the Mithridatic War.— When Sulla left Italy with 
his legions for the East, he knew very well that his enemies 
would have their own way in Italy during his absence; but he 
also knew that, if successful in his campaign against Mithri- 
dates, he could easily regain Italy, and wrest the government 
from the hands of the Marian party. 

We can here take space to give simply the results of Sulla's 
campaigns in the East. After driving the army of Mithridates 
out of Greece, Sulla crossed the Hellespont, and forced the 
king to sue for peace. He gave up his conquered territory, 
surrendered his war-ships, and paid a large indemnity to cover 
the expenses of the war. 



THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 323 

With the Mithridatic War ended, Sulla wrote to the Senate, 
enumerating all his services to the state in the Jugurthine, 
Cimbrian, Social, and Eastern wars. "In return, his adversa- 
ries," he goes on to complain, "had declared him an enemy to 
the Roman state ; they had demolished his home, murdered his 
friends, and his wife and children had with difficulty escaped." 
He was now coming to take vengeance upon the Marian party 
— his own and the republic's foes. 

The terror and consternation produced at Rome by this 
letter were increased by the accidental burning of the Capitol. 
The Sibylline Books, which held the secrets of the fate of 
Rome, were consumed. This accident awakened the most 
gloomy apprehensions. Such an event, it was believed, could 
only foreshadow the most direful calamities to the state. 

The Proscriptions of Sulla. — The returning army from the 
East landed in Italy. The raw levies of the consuls Cinna 
and Carbo were easily cut to pieces by the veteran legions of 
Sulla, who marched into Rome with all the powers of a dicta- 
tor. The leaders of the Marian party were proscribed, rewards 
were offered for their heads, and their property was confiscated. 
The body of Marius was dragged from its tomb and thrown 
into the Anio. Sulla was implored to make out a list of those 
he designed to put to death, that those he intended to spare 
might be relieved of the terrible suspense in which all were 
now held. He made out a list of eighty, which was attached 
to the Rostrum. The people murmured at the length of the 
roll. In a few days it was extended to over three hundred, 
and grew rapidly, until it included the names of thousands of 
the best citizens of Italy. Hundreds were murdered, not for 
any offence, but because some favorites of Sulla coveted their 
estates. A wealthy noble coming into the Forum, and reading 
his own name in the list of the proscribed, exclaimed, "Alas ! 
my villa has proved my ruin." The infamous Catiline, by hav- 
ing the name of a brother placed upon the fatal roll, secured 



324 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

his property. It was during this reign of terror that Crassus, 
at this time a young man, "laid the foundation of the wealth 
which earned him the renown of the richest of the Romans." 
Julius Caesar, now a mere boy of eighteen, was proscribed on 
account of his relationship to Marius; but, upon the interces- 
sion of friends, Sulla spared him : as he did so, however, he 
said warningly, and, as the event proved, prophetically, " There 
is in that boy many a Marius." 

Senators, knights, and wealthy land-owners fell by hundreds 
and by thousands ; but the poor Italians who had sided with 
the Marian party were simply slaughtered by tens of thousands. 
The inhabitants of entire cities and provinces were massacred 
to make room for the soldiers of Sulla, of whom more than 
one hundred thousand were settled in different parts of Italy, 
upon lands and in homes thus emptied of their owners. The 
Etrurians and Samnites were almost annihilated. Nor did the 
provinces escape. In Sicily, Spain, and Africa the enemies 
of the dictator were hunted and exterminated like noxious ani- 
mals. It is estimated that the civil war of Marius and Sulla 
cost the republic over one hundred and fifty thousand lives. 

The Triumph and Death of Sulla. — When Sulla had sated 
his revenge^he celebrated a splendid triumph at Rome; and 
the Senate passed an act declaring all that he had done legal 
and right, and, moreover, caused to be erected in the Forum a 
gilded equestrian statue of the dictator, which bore the legend, 
" To Lucius Cornelius Sulla, the Commander Beloved by 
Fortune." 

The Senate now formally conferred upon Sulla, what he al- 
ready possessed, the powers of the dictatorship, securing to 
him the supreme authority for life. He used his position and 
influence in recasting the constitution in the interest of the 
aristocratical party. After enjoying the unlimited power of an 
Asiatic despot for three years, Sulla suddenly resigned the dic- 
tatorship, and retired to his villa at Puteoli, where he gave 



THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 325 

himself up to the grossest dissipations. He died the year 
following his abdication (78 B.C.). Just before his death, 
learning that a Roman questor was delaying to render his ac- 
counts in the hope that the expected event would give him 
an opportunity to evade his obligations, he caused the officer 
to be brought into his chamber and strangled before him. 

The soldiers who had fought under the old general crowded 
to his funeral from all parts of Italy. The body was burned 
upon a huge funeral pyre raised in the Campus Martius. The 
monument erected to his memory bore this inscription, which 
he himself had composed: " None of my friends ever did me 
a kindness, and none of my enemies ever did me a wrong, 
without being fully requited." 



326 ANCIENT HISTORY. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC (concluded). 
(133-31 B.C.) 

Pompey the Great in Spain. — The fires of the Civil War, 
though quenched in Italy, were still smouldering in Spain. 
Sertorius, an adherent of Marius, had there stirred up the mar- 
tial tribes of Lusitania, and incited a general revolt against the 
power of the aristocratical government at Rome. Cneius Pom- 
pey, a rising young leader of the oligarchy, upon whom the 
title of Great had already been conferred as a reward for crush- 
ing the Marian party in Sicily and Africa, was sent into Spain 
to perform a similar service there. 

For several years the war was carried on with varying fort- 
unes. At times the power of Rome in the peninsula seemed 
on the verge of utter extinction. Finally, the brave Sertorius 
was assassinated, and then the whole of Spain was quickly re- 
gained. Pompey boasted of having forced the gates of more 
than eight hundred cities of Spain and Southern Gaul. 
Throughout all the conquered regions he established military 
colonies, and reorganized the local governments, putting in 
power those who would be, not only friends and allies of the 
Roman state, but also his own personal adherents. How he 
used these men as instruments of his ambition, we shall learn 
a little later. 

Spartacus: War of the Gladiators. — While Pompey was sub- 
duing the Marian faction in Spain, a new danger broke out in 
the midst of Italy. Gladiatorial combats had become, at this 
time, the favoiite sport of the amphitheatre. At Capua was a 



THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 327 

sort of training-school, from which skilled fighters were hired 
out for public or private entertainments. In this seminary was 
a Thracian slave, known by the name of Spartacus, who incited 
his companions to revolt. The insurgents fled to the crater 
of Vesuvius, and made that their stronghold. There they were 
joined by gladiators from other schools, and by slaves and dis- 
contented men from every quarter. Some slight successes 
enabled them to arm themselves with the weapons of their 
enemies. Their number at length increased to one hundred 
thousand men. For three years they defied the power of 
Rome, and even gained control of the larger part of Southern 
Italy. Four Roman armies sent against them were cut to 
pieces. 

But Spartacus, who was a man of real ability and discern- 
ment, foresaw that a protracted contest with Rome must inevi- 
tably issue in the triumph of the government. He therefore 
counselled his followers to fight their way over the Alps, and 
then to disperse to their various homes in Gaul, Spain, and 
Thrace. But, elated with the successes already achieved, they 
imagined that they could capture Rome, and have all Italy for 
a spoil. Their camp was already filled with plunder, which 
the insurgents sold to speculators. They took in exchange for 
these spoils only brass and iron, which their forges quickly 
converted into weapons. 

At length M. Crassus succeeded in crowding the insurgents 
down into Rhegium, where Hannibal had stood so long at bay. 
Spartacus now resolved to pass over into Sicily, and stir up the 
embers of the old Servile War upon that island. He bargained 
with the pirates that infested the neighboring seas to convey 
his forces across the straits ; but as soon as they had received 
the stipulated price they treacherously sailed away, and left 
Spartacus and his followers to their fate. Crassus threw up a 
wall across the isthmus, to prevent the escape of the insur- 
gents; but Spartacus broke through the Roman line by night, 
and hastened northward with his army. Following in hot pur- 



328 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

suit, Crassus overtook the fugitives at the Silarus, and there 
subjected them to a decisive defeat. Spartacus himself was 
slain ; but five thousand of the insurgents escaped, and fled 
towards the Alps. This flying band was met by Po'mpey, who 
was returning from Spain, and it was simply annihilated. Pom- 
pey at once sent a message to the Senate, in which, in a most 
ungenerous manner, he sought to take away from Crassus, to 
whom it really belonged, the credit of the overthrow of the 
rebellion. This contemptible message ran thus: "Crassus 
has defeated the gladiators in open battle ; but I have plucked 
the war up by the roots." 

The rebellion was punished with Roman severity. The 
slaves that had taken part in the revolt were hunted through 
the mountains and forests, and exterminated like dangerous 
beasts. The Appian Way was lined with six thousand crosses, 
bearing aloft as many bodies — a terrible warning of the fate 
awaiting slaves that should dare strike for freedom. 

The Abuses of Verres. — Terrible as was the state of society 
in Italy, still worse was the condition of affairs outside the 
peninsula. At first the rule of the Roman governors in the 
provinces, though severe, was honest and prudent. But during 
the period of profligacy and corruption upon which we have 
now entered, the administration of these foreign possessions 
was shamefully dishonest and incredibly cruel and rapacious. 
The prosecution of Verres, the propraetor of Sicily, exposed 
the scandalous rule of the oligarchy, into whose hands the gov- 
ernment had fallen. For three years Verres plundered and 
ravaged that island with impunity. He sold all the offices, 
and all his decisions as judge. He demanded of the farmers 
the greater part of their crops, which he sold, to swell his al- 
ready enormous fortune. Agriculture was thus ruined, and the 
farms were abandoned. Verres had a taste for art, and when 
on his tours through the island confiscated gems, vases, statues, 
paintings, and other things that struck his fancy, whether in 



THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 329 

temples or private dwellings. He appropriated to his own 
uses the money which he was to employ in equipping ships to 
chastise the pirates that vexed the surrounding seas; and then 
for the defeat which followed he struck off the heads of his ad- 
mirals. Ships entering the Sicilian harbors were seized and 
their cargoes sold. He even caused a Roman trader, for a 
slight offence, to be crucified, " the cross being set on the beach 
within sight of Italy, that he might address to his native shores 
the ineffectual cry, 'I am a Roman citizen.' " 

Verres could not be called to account while in office; and it 
was doubtful whether, after the end of his term, he could be 
convicted; so corrupt and venal were become the members of 
the Senate, before whom all such offenders must be tried. In- 
deed, Verres himself openly boasted that he intended two 
thirds of his gains for his judges and lawyers, while the remain- 
ing one third would satisfy himself. 

Finally, after Sicily had come to look as though it had been 
ravaged by barbarian conquerors, the infamous robber was 
impeached. The prosecutor was Marcus Tullius Cicero, the 
brilliant orator, who was at this time just rising into promi- 
nence at Rome. The storm of indignation raised by the de- 
velopments of the trial caused Verres to flee into exile to Mas- 
silia, whither he took with him much of his ill-gotten wealth. 

War with the Mediterranean Pirates (66 b.c). — The Roman 
republic was now threatened by a new danger from the sea. 
The Mediterranean was swarming with pirates. Roman con- 
quests in Africa, Spain, and especially in Greece and Asia 
Minor, had caused thousands of adventurous spirits from those 
maritime countries to flee to their ships, and seek a livelihood 
by preying upon the commerce of the seas. The cruelty and 
extortions of the Roman governors had also driven large num- 
bers to the same course of life. These corsairs had banded 
themselves into a sort of government, and held possession of 
numerous strongholds — four hundred, it is said — in Cilicia, 

'5* 



330 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Crete, and other countries. With a full thousand swift ships 
they scoured the waters of the Mediterranean, so that no 
merchantman could spread her sails in safety. They formed 
a floating empire, which Michelet calls " a wandering Carthage, 
which no one knew where to seize, and which floated from 
Spain to Asia." 

These buccaneers, the Vikings of the South, made descents 
upon the coast everywhere, plundered villas and temples, at- 
tacked and captured cities, and sold the inhabitants as slaves 
in the various slave-markets of the Roman world. They carried 
off merchants and magistrates from the Appian Way itself, and 
held them for ransom. They made a jest of Roman citizen- 
ship, and defied the authority of the Senate. At last the corn- 
ships of Sicily and Africa were intercepted, and Rome was 
threatened with the alternative of starvation or the paying of 
an enormous ransom. 

The Romans now bestirred themselves. Pompey was in- 
vested with dictatorial power for three years over the Mediter- 
ranean and all its coasts for fifty miles inland. An armament 
of five hundred ships and one hundred thousand men was in- 
trusted to his command. The great general acted with his 
characteristic energy. Within forty days he had swept the 
pirates from the Western Mediterranean, and in forty-nine 
more hunted them from all the waters east of Italy, captured 
their strongholds in Cilicia, and settled the twenty thousand 
prisoners that fell into his hands in various colonies in Asia 
Minor and Greece. Pompey's vigorous and successful con- 
duct of this campaign against the pirates gained him great 
honor and reputation. 

Pompey and the Mithridatic War. — In the very year that 
Pompey suppressed the pirates (66 B.C.), he was called to 
undertake a more difficult task. Mithridates the Great, led 
on by his ambition and encouraged by the discontent created 
throughout the Eastern provinces by Roman rapacity and mis- 



THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 33 1 

rule, was again in arms against Rome. He had stirred almost 
all Asia Minor to revolt. The management of the war was at 
first intrusted to Lucullus, but he soon lost the confidence 
both of the people at home and of the soldiers in the army j 
so the command was taken from him and conferred upon Pom- 
pey, whose successes in the war of the pirates had aroused un- 
bounded enthusiasm for him. 

In the first engagement, which took place upon the Lycus, 
in ancient Assyria, Pompey almost annihilated the army of 
Mithridates. The king lied from the field, and, after seeking 
in vain for a refuge in Asia Minor, sought an asylum at the 
farthest corner of the Euxine, beyond the Caucasus Moun- 
tains, whose bleak barriers interposed their friendly shield 
between him and his pursuers. Desisting from the pursuit, 
Pompey turned south and conquered Syria, Phoenicia, and 
Ccele-Syria, which countries he erected into a Roman province. 

Still pushing southward, the conqueror entered Palestine, 
and after a short siege captured Jerusalem (63 B.C.). It was 
at this time that Pompey insisted, in spite of the protestations 
of the high-priest, upon entering the Holy of Holies of the 
Hebrew temple. Pushing aside the curtain to the jealously 
guarded apartment, he was astonished to find nothing but a 
darkened and vacant chamber, without even a statue of the 
god to whom the shrine was dedicated — nothing but a little 
chest containing some sacred relics. 

While Pompey was thus engaged, Mithridates was straining 
every energy to raise an army among the Scythian tribes with 
which to carry out a most daring project. He proposed to 
cross Europe and fall upon Italy from the north. A revolt on 
the part of his son Pharnaces ruined all his plans and hopes; 
and the disappointed monarch, to avoid falling into the hands 
of the Romans, took his own life (63 B.C.). His death removed 
one of the most formidable enemies that Rome had ever en- 
countered. Hamilcar, Hannibal, and Mithridates were the 
three great names that the Romans always pronounced with 



332 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

respect and dread. It is asserted that, when news of the death 
of Mithridates was carried to Italy, "the Romans rejoiced as 
though ten thousand of their enemies had been slain." 

Pompey's Triumph. — After regulating the affairs of the dif- 
ferent states and provinces in the East, Pompey set out on his 
return to Rome. His journey through Asia Minor and Greece 
was one continued ovation. At the capital, after some delay 
caused by the jealousy of his enemies, he enjoyed such a tri- 
umph as never before had been seen since Rome had become 
a city. The spoils of all the East were borne in the procession ; 
322 princes walked as captives before the triumphal chariot of 
the conqueror ; legends upon the banners proclaimed that he 
had conquered 21 kings, captured 1000 strongholds, 900 towns, 
and 800 ships, and subjugated more than 12,000,000 people; 
and that he had put in the treasury more than $25,000,000, 
besides doubling the regular revenues of the state. He boast- 
ed that three times he had triumphed, and each time for the 
conquest of a continent — first for Africa, then for Europe, and 
now for Asia, which completed the conquest of the world. 

The Conspiracy of Catiline. — While the legions were absent 
from Italy with Pompey in the East, a most daring conspiracy 
against the government was formed at Rome. Catiline, a 
ruined spendthrift, had gathered a large company of profligate 
young nobles, weighed down with debt and desperate like him- 
self, and had deliberately planned to murder the consuls and 
the chief men of the state, and to plunder and burn the capital. 
The offices of the new government were to be divided among 
the conspirators. They depended upon receiving aid from 
Africa and Spain, arid proposed to invite to their standard the 
gladiators in the various schools of Italy, as well as slaves and 
criminals. The proscriptions of Marius and Sulla were to be 
renewed, and all debts were to be cancelled. 

Fortunately, all the plans of the conspirators were revealed 



THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 333 

to the consul Cicero, the great orator. The Senate immedi- 
ately clothed the consuls with dictatorial power with the usual 
formula, that they should take care that the republic received 
no harm. The gladiators were secured ; the city walls were 
manned ; and at every point the capital and state were armed 
against the " invisible foe." Then in the Senate-chamber, with 
Catiline himself present, Cicero exposed the whole conspiracy 
in a famous philippic, known as " The First Oration against 
Catiline." The senators shrank from the conspirator, and left 
the seats about him empty. After a feeble effort to reply to 
Cicero, overwhelmed by a sense of his guilt, and the cries of 
"traitor" and "parricide" from the senators, he fled from the 
chamber, and hurried out of the city to the camp of his follow- 
ers, in Etruria. His associates in crime in the city were ar- 
rested and executed. In a desperate battle fought near Pis- 
toria, Catiline was slain with many of his followers. His head 
was borne as a trophy to Rome. Cicero was hailed as the 
" Saviour of his Country." 

Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey. — Although the conspiracy of 
Catiline had failed, it was very easy to foresee that the down- 
fall of the Roman republic was near at hand. Indeed, from 
this time on only the name remains. The basis of the institu- 
tions of the republic — the olden Roman virtue, integrity, patri- 
otism, and faith in the gods — was gone, having been swept 
away by the tide of luxury, selfishness, and immorality pro- 
duced by the long series of foreign conquests and robberies in 
which the Roman people had been engaged. The days of 
liberty at Rome were over. From this time forward the govern- 
ment was really in the hands of ambitious and popular leaders, 
or of corrupt combinations and rings. Events gather about a 
few great names, and the annals of the republic become bio- 
graphical rather than historical. 

There were now in the state three men — Caesar, Crassus, and 
Pompey — who were destined to shape affairs. Caius Julius 



334 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Caesar was born in the year ioo B.C. Although descended 
from an old patrician family, still his sympathies, and an early 
marriage to the daughter of Cinna, one of the adherents of 
Marius, led him early to identify himself with the Marian or 
democratic party. We have already noticed his escape from 
the proscriptions of Sulla, and the prediction of the dictator 
that in him would be found many Mariuses. In every way 
Caesar courted popular favor. He lavished enormous sums 
upon public games and tables. His debts are said to have 
amounted to 25,000,000 sesterces ($1,250,000). His popularity 
was unbounded. A successful campaign in Spain had already 
made known to himself, as well as to others, his genius as a 
commander. 

Crassus belonged to the senatorial or aristocratical party. 
He owed his influence to his enormous wealth, being one of the 
richest men in the Roman world. His property was estimated 
at 7100 talents (about $7,500,000).* 

With Pompey and his achievements we are already familiar. 
His influence throughout the Roman world was great ; for, in 
settling and reorganizing the many countries he subdued, he 

* " The greatest part of this fortune, if we may declare the truth, to his 
extreme disgrace, was gleaned from war and from fires ; for he made a 
traffic of the public calamities. When Sulla had taken Rome, and sold the 
estates of those whom he had put to death, which he both reputed and call- 
ed the spoils of his enemies, he was desirous of involving all persons of 
consequence in his crime, and he found in Crassus a man who refused no 
kind of gift or purchase. Crassus observed also how liable the city was to 
fires, and how frequently houses fell down ; which misfortunes were owing 
to the weight of the buildings, and their standing so close together. In 
consequence of this, he provided himself with slaves who were carpenters 
and masons, and went on collecting them till he had upwards of five hun- 
dred. Then he made it his business to buy houses that were on fire, and 
others that joined upon them ; and he commonly had them at a low price 
by reason of the fire and distress the owners were in about the event. 
[Then the slaves would set to work and extinguish the fire, and Crassus at 
a small cost would repair the damage.] Hence in time he became master 
of a great part of Rome." — Plutarch. 



THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 335 

had always taken care to reconstruct them in his own interest, 
as well as in that of the republic. The offices, as we have seen, 
were filled with his friends and adherents. This patronage had 
secured for him incalculable authority in the provinces. His 
veteran legionaries, too, were naturally devoted to the general 
who had led them to victory and glory. 

The First Triumvirate. — What is known as the First Trium- 
virate rested on the genius of Caesar, the wealth of Crassus, 
and the achievements of Pompey. It was a coalition or private 
arrangement entered into by these three men for the purpose 
of securing to themselves the control of public affairs. Each 
pledged himself to work for the interests of the others. Caesar 
was the manager of the ring. He skilfully drew away Pompey 
from the aristocratical party, and effected a reconciliation be- 
tween him and Crassus, for they had been at enmity. It was 
.agreed that Crassus and Pompey should aid Caesar in securing 
the consulship. In return for this favor, Caesar was to secure 
for Pompey a confirmation of his acts in the East, and allot- 
ments of land for his veterans, which thus far had been jealously 
withheld by the senatorial party. 

Everything fell out as the triumvirs had planned : Caesar got 
the consulship, and Pompey received the lands for his soldiers. 
The two ablest senatorial leaders, Cato and Cicero, whose in- 
corruptible integrity threatened the plans of the triumvirs, were 
got out of the way. Cato was given an appointment which 
sent him into honorable exile to the island of Cyprus ; while 
Cicero, on the charge of having denied Roman citizens the 
right of trial in the matter of the Catiline conspirators, was 
banished from the capital, his mansion on the Palatine was 
razed to the ground, and the remainder of his property con- 
fiscated. 

Caesar's Conquests in Gaul and Britain. — At the end of his 

consulship, Caesar had assigned him the administration of the 



336 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

provinces of Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul. Already he was 
revolving in his mind plans for seizing supreme power. Beyond 
the Alps the Gallic and Germanic tribes were in restless move- 
ment. He saw there a grand field for military exploits, which 
should gain for him such glory and prestige as, in other fields, 
had been won and were now enjoyed by Pompey. With this 
achieved, and with a veteran army devoted to his interests, he 
might hope easily to attain that position at the head of affairs 
towards which his ambition was urging him. 

In the spring of 58 B.C. alarming intelligence from beyond 
the Alps caused Caesar to hasten from Rome into Transalpine 
Gaul. Now began a series of eight brilliant campaigns direct- 
ed against the various tribes of Gaul, Germany, and Britain. 
In his famous "Commentaries" Caesar himself has left us a 
faithful and graphic account of all the memorable marches, 
battles, and sieges that filled the years between 58 and 50 B.C. 

Caesar's first campaign after arriving in Gaul was directed 
against the Helvetians. These people, finding themselves too 
much crowded in their narrow territory, hemmed in as they 
were between the Alps and the Jura ranges, had resolved to 
seek broader fields in the Roman provinces across the Rhone. 
Disregarding the commands of Caesar, the entire nation, num- 
bering, with their allies, 368,000 souls, left their old homes, 
and began their westward march. In a great battle Caesar com- 
pletely defeated the barbarians, and forced them back into their 
old home between the mountains, now quite large enough for 
the survivors, as barely a third of those that had set out returned. 

Caesar next defeated the Suevi, a German tribe that, under 
the great chieftain Ariovistus, had crossed the Rhine, and were 
seeking settlements in Gaul. These people he forced back 
over the Rhine into their native forests. The two years follow- 
ing this campaign were consumed in subjugating the different 
tribes in Northern and Western Gaul, and in composing the 
affairs of the country. In the war with the Veneti was fought 
the first historic naval battle upon the waters of the Atlantic. 



THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 337 

The year 55 B.C. marked two great achievements. Early in 
the spring of this year Caesar constructed a bridge across the 
Rhine, and led his legions against the Germans in their native 
woods and swamps. In the autumn of the same year he cross- 
ed, by means of hastily constructed ships, the channel that 
separates the mainland from Britain, and after maintaining a 
foothold upon that island for two weeks withdrew his legions 
into Gaul for the winter. The following season he made an- 
other invasion of Britain ; but, after some encounters with the 
fierce barbarians, recrossed to the mainland, without having 
established any permanent garrisons in the island. Almost 
one hundred years passed away before the natives of Britain 
were again molested by the Romans. 

In the year 52 B.C., while Caesar was absent in Italy, a general 
revolt occurred among the Gallic tribes. It was a last desper- 
ate struggle for the recovery of their lost independence. Ver- 
cingetorix, chief of the Arverni, was the leader of the insurrec- 
tion. For a time it seemed as though the Romans would be 
driven from the country. But Caesar's despatch and genius 
saved the province to the republic. Vercingetorix and 80,000 
of his warriors were shut up in Alesia, and were finally starved 
into submission. All Gaul was now quickly reconquered and 
pacified. 

In his campaigns in Gaul, Caesar had subjugated three hun- 
dred tribes, captured eight hundred cities, and slain one million 
barbarians — one third of the entire population of the country. 
Another third he had taken prisoners. Great enthusiasm was 
aroused at Rome by these victories. " Let the Alps now sink," 
exclaimed Cicero : " the gods raised them to shelter Italy from 
the barbarians; they are now no longer needed." 

Results of the Gallic Wars.— One result of the Gallic wars 
of Caesar was the Romanizing of Gaul. The country was 
opened to Roman traders and settlers, who carried with them 
the language, customs, and arts of Italy. Honors were con- 



338 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

ferred upon many of the Gallic chieftains, privileges were be- 
stowed upon cities, and the franchise even given to prominent 
and influential natives. As another result of the conquest of 
the country, Mommsen gives prominence to the checking of 
migratory movements of the German tribes, which gave " the 
necessary interval for Italian civilization to becomj established 
in Gaul, on the Danube, in Africa, and in Spain."' 

Grassus in the East. — In the year 56 B.C., while Caesar was 
in the midst of his Gallic wars, he found time to meet Pompey, 
Crassus, and two hundred senators and magistrates who co- 
operated with the triumvirs, at Lucca, in Etruria, where, in a sort 
of convention, arrangements were made for another term of 
five years. (A nomination by this league or ring of politicians 
and generals was equivalent to an election.) It was agreed 
that Caesar's command in Gaul should be extended five years, 
and that Crassus and Pompey should be made consuls. All 
these measures were carried into effect, the elections at Rome 
being secured by intimidation, and by the votes of soldiers of 
the Gallic legions, to whom Caesar had granted furloughs for 
this purpose. The government of the two Spains was given 
to Pompey, while that of Syria was assigned to Crassus. 

The latter hurried to the East, hoping to rival there the brill- 
iant conquests of Caesar in the West. At this time the great 
Parthian empire occupied the immense reach of territory 
stretching from the Valley of the Euphrates to that of the 
Indus. Notwithstanding that the Parthians were at peace with 
the Roman people, Crassus led his army across the Euphrates, 
and invaded their territory, intent upon a war of conquest and 
booty. In the midst of the Mesopotamian desert he was 
treacherously deserted by his guides; and his army, sudden- 
ly attacked by the Parthian cavalry, was almost annihilated. 
Crassus himself was slain, and his head, so it is said, was filled 
by his cantors with molten gold, that he might be "sated" 
with the metal which he had so coveted during life. 



THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 339 

In the death of Crassus, Caesar lost his stanchest friend, 
one who had never failed him, and whose wealth had been 
freely used for his advancement. When Caesar, before his 
consulship, had received a command in Spain, and the im- 
mense sums he owed at Rome were embarrassing him and 
preventing his departure, Crassus had come forward and gen- 
erously paid more than one million dollars of his friend's debts. 

Cffisar Crosses the Rubicon.— After the death of Crassus, the 
world belonged to Caesar and Ponipey. That the insatiable 
ambition of these two rivals should sooner or later bring them 
into collision was inevitable. Their alliance in the triumvirate 
was simply one of selfish convenience, not of friendship. 
While Caesar was carrying on his brilliant campaigns in Gaul, 
Pompey was at Rome watching jealously the growing reputa- 
tion of his great rival. He strove, by a princely liberality, to 
win the affections of the common people. On the Field of 
Mars he erected an immense theatre with seats for forty thou- 
sand spectators. He gave magnificent games, and set public 
tables ; and when the interest of the people in the sports of the 
Circus flagged, he entertained them with gladiatorial combats. 
In a similar manner Caesar strengthened himself with the people 
for the struggle which he plainly foresaw. He sought in every 
way to ingratiate himself with the Gauls: he increased the pay 
of his soldiers, conferred the privileges of Roman citizenship 
upon the inhabitants of different cities, and sent to Rome 
enormous sums of gold to be expended in the erection of tem- 
ples, theatres, and other public structures, and in the celebra- 
tion of games and shows that should rival in magnificence 
those given by Pompey. 

The terrible condition of affairs at the capital favored the 
ambition of Pompey. So selfish and corrupt were the mem- 
bers of the Senate, so dead to all virtue and to every senti- 
ment of patriotism were the people, that even such patriots 
as Cato and Cicero saw no hope for the maintenance of the re- 



34-0 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

public. The former favored the appointment of Pompey as sole 
consul for one year, which was about the same thing as making 
him dictator. "It is better," said Cato, "to choose a master 
than to wait for the tyrant whom anarchy will impose upon us." 
The "tyrant" in his and everybody's mind was Caesar. 

Pompey now broke with Caesar, and attached himself again 
to the old aristocratical party, which he had deserted for the 
alliance and promises of the triumvirate. The death at this 
time of his wife Julia, the daughter of Caesar, severed the bonds 
of relationship at the same moment that those of ostensible 
friendship were broken. 

Caesar now demanded the consulship. He knew that his 
life would not be safe in Rome from the jealousy and hatred 
of his enemies without the security from impeachment and 
trial which that office would give. The Senate, under the 
manipulation of these same enemies, issued a decree that he 
should resign his office, and disband his Gallic legions by a 
stated day. The crisis had now come. Caesar ordered his 
legions to hasten from Gaul into Italy. Without waiting for 
their arrival, at the head of a small body of veterans that he 
had with him at Ravenna, he crossed the Rubicon, a small 
stream that marked the boundary of his province. This was 
a declaration of war. As he plunged into the river, he ex- 
claimed, "The die is cast." 

The Civil War of Caesar and Pompey. — The bold movement 
of Caesar produced great consternation at Rome. Realizing 
the danger of delay, Caesar, without waiting for the Gallic le- 
gions to join him, marched southward. One city after another 
threw open its gates to him ; legion after legion went over to 
his standard. Pompey and the Senate hastened from Rome 
to Brundisium, and thence, with about twenty -five thousand 
men, fled across the Adriatic into Greece. The Senate reas- 
sembled at Thessalonica, in Macedonia. Within sixty days 
Caesar made himself undisputed master of all Italy. 



THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 341 

Pompey and Caesar now controlled the Roman world. It 
was large, but not large enough for both these ambitious men. 
As to which was likely to become sole master, it were difficult 
for one watching events at that time to foresee. Caesar held 
Italy, Illyricum, and Gaul, with the resources of his own genius 
and the idolatrous attachment of his soldiers; Pompey con- 
trolled Spain, Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, Greece, and the provinces 
of Asia, with the prestige of his great name and the indefinite 
resources of the East. 

Caesar's first care was to pacify Italy. His moderation and 
prudence won all classes to his side. Many had looked to 
see the terrible scenes of the days of Marius and Sulla re- 
enacted. Caesar, however, soon gave assurance that life and 
property should be held sacred. He needed money ; but, to 
avoid laying a tax upon the people, he asked for the treasure 
kept beneath the Capitol. Legend declared that this gold was 
the actual ransom-money which Brennus had demanded of the 
Romans, and which Camillus had saved by his timely appear- 
ance. It was esteemed sacred, and was never to be used save 
in case of another Gallic invasion. When Caesar attempted 
to get possession of the treasure, the tribune Metellus prevent- 
ed him ; but Caesar impatiently brushed him aside, saying, 
" The fear of a Gallic invasion is over : I have subdued the 
Gauls." 

With order restored in Italy, Caesar's next movement was to 
gain control of the corn-fields of Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa. 
So long as these granaries were in the hands of the Pompeians, 
Rome was in constant danger of famine. A single legion 
brought over Sardinia without resistance to the side of Caesar. 
Cato, the lieutenant of Pompey, fled from before Curio out 
of Sicily. In Africa, however, the forces of Curio sustained a 
severe defeat, and the Pompeians held their ground there un- 
til the close of the war. Caesar, meanwhile, had subjugated 
Spain. In forty days the entire peninsula was brought under 
his authority. Massilia had ventured to close her gates against 



342 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

the conqueror; but a brief siege forced the city to capitulate. 
Caesar was now free to turn his forces against Pompey in the 

East. 

The Battle of Pharsalia. — From Brundisium Caesar em- 
barked his legions for Epirus. The passage was an enterprise 
attended with great danger; for Bibulu-s, Pompey's admiral, 
swept the sea with his fleets. It was not without having sus- 
tained severe losses that Caesar effected a landing upon the 
shores of Greece. His legions mustered barely twenty thou- 
sand men. Pompey's forces were at least double this number. 
Caesar's attempt to capture the camp of his rival at Dyrrachi- 
um having failed, he slowly retired into Thessaly, and drew up 
his army upon the plains of Pharsalia. Hither he was followed 
by Pompey. The adherents of the latter were so confident of 
an easy victory that they were already disputing about the 
offices at Rome, and were renting the most eligible houses 
fronting the public squares of the capital. The battle was at 
length joined. It proved Pompey's Waterloo. His army was 
cut to pieces. He himself fled from the field, and escaped to 
Egypt. Just as he was landing, he was stabbed by one of his 
former lieutenants, now an officer at the Egyptian court. The 
reigning Ptolemy had ordered Pompey's assassination in hopes 
of pleasing Caesar. " If we receive him," said he, we shall make 
Caesar our enemy and Pompey our master." 

The head of the great general was severed from his body ; 
and when Caesar, who was pressing after Pompey in hot pur- 
suit, landed in Egypt, the bloody trophy was brought to him. 
He turned from the sight with generous tears. It was no 
longer the head of his rival, but of his old associate and son- 
in-law. He ordered his assassins to be executed, and directed 
that fitting funeral obsequies should be performed over his body. 

Close of the Civil War.— Caesar was detained at Alexandria 
nine months in settling a dispute respecting the throne of 



THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 343 

Egypt. After a severe contest he overthrew the reigning 
Ptolemy, and secured the kingdom to the celebrated Cleopatra 
and a younger brother. Intelligence was now brought from 
Asia Minor that Pharnaces, son of Mithridates the Great, was 
inciting a revolt among the peoples of that region. Caesar met 
the Pontic king at Zela, defeated him, and in five days put an 
end to the war. His laconic message to the Senate announc- 
ing his victory is famous. It ran thus : Vent, vidi, via — " I 
came, I saw, I conquered." 

Caesar now hurried back to Italy, and thence proceeded to 
Africa, which the adherents of Pompey and the friends of the 
old republic had made their last rallying-place. At the great 
battle of Thapsus (46 B.C.) the last hopes of the Pompeians 
were crushed. Fifty thousand lay dead upon the field. Cato, 
who had been the very life and soul of the army, refusing to 
outlive the republic, took his own life. 

Caesar's Triumph. — Caesar was now lord of the Roman world. 
Although he refrained from assuming the title of king, no 
Eastern monarch was ever possessed of more absolute power, 
nor surrounded by more abject flatterers and sycophants. He 
was invested with all the offices and dignities of the state. 
The Senate made him perpetual dictator, and conferred upon 
him the powers of censor, consul, and tribune, with the titles of 
Pontifex Maximus and Imperator. " He was to sit in a golden 
chair in the Senate-house, his image was to be borne in the 
processions of the gods, and the seventh month of the year was 
changed in his honor from Quintilis to Julius." 

His triumph celebrating his many victories far eclipsed in 
magnificence anything that Rome had before witnessed. In the 
procession were led captive princes from all parts of the world. 
Beneath his standards marched soldiers — Gauls, Iberians, 
Africans, and Asiatics — gathered out of almost every country 
beneath the heavens. Seventy-five million dollars of treasure 
were displayed. Splendid games and tables attested the liber- 



344 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

ality of the conqueror. Sixty thousand couches were set for the 
multitudes. The shows of the theatre and the combats of the 
arena followed one another in an endless round. " Above the 
combats of the amphitheatre floated for the first time the awn- 
ing of silk, the immense velarium of a thousand colors, woven 
from the rarest and richest products of the East, to protect the 
people from the sun " (Gibbon). 

Caesar as a Statesman. — Caesar was great as a general, yet 
greater, if possible, as a statesman. The measures which he 
instituted evince profound political sagacity and surprising 
breadth of view. He sought to reverse the jealous and narrow 
policy of Rome in the past, and to this end rebuilt both Car- 
thage and Corinth, and founded numerous colonies in all the 
different provinces, in which he settled about 100,000 of the 
poorer citizens of the capital. Upon some of the provincials 
he conferred Roman or Latin rights, and thus strove to blend 
the varied peoples and races within the boundaries of the em- 
pire in a real nationality, with community of interests and 
sympathies. He reformed the calendar (Caesar as pontiff was 
especially interested in astronomy, and had written a work on 
the subject) so as to bring the festivals once more in their 
proper seasons, and provided against further confusion by 
making the year consist of 365 days, with an added day for 
every fourth or leap year. 

Besides these achievements, Caesar projected many vast un- 
dertakings, which the abrupt termination of his life prevented 
his carrying into execution. He ordered a survey of the enor- 
mous domains of the state ; he proposed to make a code or 
digest of the Roman laws — which work was left to be per- 
formed by the Emperor Justinian six centuries later ; he also 
planned many public works and improvements at Rome, among 
which were schemes for draining the Pontine Marshes and 
for changing the course of the Tiber. He further proposed 
to cut a canal across the Isthmus of Corinth (a work that 



THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 345 

modern engineers are just attempting), to construct roads over 
the Apennines, and to form a library to take the place of the 
famous Alexandrian collection, 400,000 volumes of which had 
been destroyed during his campaign in Egypt. 

But perhaps his plans of conquest in the East were his 
grandest conception. He proposed, in revenge for the defeat 
and death of his friend Crassus, to break to pieces the Parthian 
empire; then, sweeping with an army around above the Euxine, 
to destroy the dreaded hordes of Scythia; and then, falling upon 
the German tribes in the rear, to crush their power forever, 
and thus relieve the Roman empire of their constant threat. 
He was about to set out on the expedition against the Par- 
thians, when he was struck down by assassins. 

The Death of Caesar. — Caesar had his bitter personal enemies, 
who never ceased to plot his downfall. There were, too, sin- 
cere lovers of the old republic, who longed to see restored the 
liberty which the conqueror had overthrown. The impression 
began to prevail that Caesar was aiming to make himself king. 
A crown was several times offered him in public by Mark An- 
tony ; but, seeing the manifest displeasure of the people, he 
each time pushed it aside. Yet there is no doubt that secretly 
he desired it. It was reported that he proposed to rebuild the 
walls of Troy, whence the Roman race had sprung, and make 
that ancient capital the seat of the new Roman empire. Others 
professed to believe that the arts and charms of the Egyptian 
Cleopatra, who had borne him a son at Rome, would entice 
him to make Alexandria the centre of the proposed kingdom. 
So many, out of love for Rome and the old republic, were led 
to enter into a conspiracy against the life of Caesar with those 
who sought to rid themselves of the dictator for other and per- 
sonal reasons. 

The Ides (the 15th day) of March, 44 B.C., upon which day 
the Senate convened, witnessed the assassination. Seventy or 
eighty conspirators, headed by Cassius and Brutus, both of 

16 



346 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

whom had received special favors from the hands of Caesar, 
were concerned in the plot. The augurs must have had some 
knowledge of the plans of the conspirators, for they had warned 
Caesar to " beware of the Ides of March." On his way to the 
Senate-house that day, a paper warning him of his clanger was 
thrust into his hand ; but, not suspecting its urgent nature, he 
did not open it. As he entered the assembly chamber he ob- 
served the augur Spurinna, and remarked carelessly to him, 
referring to his prediction, "The Ides of March are come." 
" Yes," replied the soothsayer, " but not gone." 

No sooner had Caesar taken his seat than the conspirators 
crowded about him as if to present a petition. Upon a signal 
from one of their number their daggers were drawn. For a 
moment Caesar defended himself; but seeing Brutus, upon 
whom he had lavished gifts and favors, among the conspira- 
tors, he exclaimed reproachfully, Et tu, Brute! — "Thou, too, 
Brutus !" drew his mantle over his face, and received unresist- 
ingly their further thrusts. Pierced with twenty-three wounds, 
he sank dead at the foot of Pompey's statue. 

Funeral Oration by Mark Antony. — The conspirators, or 
" liberators," as they called themselves, had thought that the 
Senate would confirm, and the people applaud, their act. But 
both people and senators, struck with consternation, were si- 
lent. Men's faces grew pale as they recalled the proscriptions 
of Sulla, and saw in the assassination of Caesar the first act 
in a similar Reign of Terror. As the conspirators issued from 
the Senate house, and entered the Forum, holding aloft their 
bloody daggers, instead of the expected acclamations they were 
met by an ominous silence. The liberators hastened for safety 
to the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, going thither ostensibly 
for the purpose of giving thanks for the death of the tyrant. 

Upon the day set for the funeral obsequies, Mark Antony, 
the trusted friend and secretary of Caesar, mounted the rostrum 
in the Forum to deliver the usual funeral oration. He recount- 



THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 347 

ed the great deeds of Caesar, the glory he had conferred upon 
the Roman name, dwelt upon his liberality and his munificent 
bequests to the people — even to some who were now his 
murderers; and, when he had wrought the feelings of the mul- 
titude to the highest tension, he raised the robe of Caesar, and 
showed the rents made by the daggers of the assassins. Caesar 
had always been beloved by the people and idolized by his 
soldiers. They were now driven almost to frenzy with grief and 
indignation. Seizing weapons and torches, they rushed through 
the streets, vowing vengeance upon the conspirators. The 
liberators, however, escaped from the fury of the mob, and fled 
from Rome, Brutus and Cassius seeking refuge in Greece. 

The Second Triumvirate.— Antony had gained possession of 
the will and papers of Caesar, and now, under color of carrying 
out the testament of the dictator, according to a decree of the 
Senate, entered upon a course of high-handed usurpation. He 
was aided in his designs by Lepidus, one of Caesar's old lieu- 
tenants. Very soon he was exercising all the powers of a real 
dictator. "The tyrant is dead," said Cicero, "but the tyranny 
lives." This was a bitter commentary upon the words of Bru- 
tus, who, as he drew his dagger from the body of Caesar, turned 
to Cicero and exclaimed, " Rejoice, O Father of your Country, 
for Rome is free." Rome could not be free, the republic could 
not be re-established, because the olden love for virtue and 
liberty had died out from among the people — had been over- 
whelmed by the rising tide of vice, corruption, sensuality, and 
irreligion that had set in upon the capital. 

To what length Antony would have gone in his career of 
usurpation it is difficult to say, had he not been opposed at this 
point by Octavius, the grand-nephew of Julius Caesar, and the 
one whom he had named in his will as his heir and successor. 
Although only eighteen years of age, he now came boldly for- 
ward and claimed the inheritance, assuming at the same time 
the name Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus. He won Cicero to 



348 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

his support, and aroused the enthusiasm of the people by sell- 
ing his own estates, in order to pay the bequests which his 
uncle had made in his will. Antony had already seized, and 
used for his own purposes, the treasures from which the dicta- 
tor had designed these legacies to be paid. 

Upon the Senate declaring in favor of Octavius, civil war im- 
mediately broke out between him and Antony and Lepidus. 
After several indecisive battles had been fought between the 
forces of the rival competitors, Octavius proposed to Antony 
and Lepidus a reconciliation. The three met on a small isl- 
and in the Rhenus, a little stream in Northern Italy, and there 
formed a league known as the Second Triumvirate. 

The plans of the triumvirs were infamous. They first di- 
vided the world among themselves: Octavius was to have the 
government of the West; Antony, that of the East; while to 
Lepidus fell the control of Africa. A general proscription, 
such as had marked the coming to power of Marius and Cinna, 
was then resolved upon. It was agreed that each should give 
up to the assassin such friends of his as had incurred the ill- 
will of either of the other triumvirs. Under this arrangement 
Octavius gave up his friend Cicero — who had incurred the 
hatred of Antony by opposing his schemes — and allowed his 
name to be put at the head of the list of the proscribed. 

The friends of the orator urged him to flee the country. 
"Let me die," said he, "in my fatherland, which I have so of- 
ten saved!" His attendants were hurrying him, half unwilling, 
towards the coast, when his pursuers came up and despatched 
him in his litter. His head was carried to Rome and set up 
in front of the rostrum, " from which he had so often addressed 
the people with his eloquent appeals for liberty." It is told 
that Fulvia, the wife of Antony, ran her gold bodkin through 
the tongue, in revenge for the bitter philippics it had uttered 
against her husband. The right hand of the victim — the hand 
that had penned the eloquent orations — was nailed to the 
rostrum. 



THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 349 

Cicero was but one victim among many hundreds. All the 
dreadful scenes of the clays of Sulla were re-enacted. Three 
hundred senators and two thousand knights were murdered. 
The estates of the wealthy were confiscated, and conferred by 
the triumvirs upon their friends and favorites. 

Last Struggle of the Republic at Philippi.— The friends of 
the old republic, and the enemies of the triumvirs, were mean- 
while rallying in the East. Brutus and Cassius were the ani- 
mating spirits. The Asiatic provinces were plundered to raise 
money for the soldiers of the liberators. Octavius and Antony, 
as soon as they had disposed of their enemies in Italy, crossed 
the Adriatic into Greece, to disperse the forces of the republi- 
cans there. The liberators, advancing to meet them, passed 
over the Hellespont into Thrace. 

Tradition tells how one night a spectre appeared to Brutus 
and seemed to say, " I am thy evil genius ; we will meet again 
at Philippi." At Philippi, in Thrace, the hostile armies met 
(42 B.C.). In two successive engagements the new levies of 
the liberators were cut to pieces, and both Brutus and Cassius, 
believing the cause of the republic forever lost, committed sui- 
cide. It was, indeed, the last effort of the republic. The his- 
tory of the events that lie between the action at Philippi and 
the establishment of the empire is simply a record of the strug- 
gles among the triumvirs for the possession of the prize of su- 
preme power. 

The New Division of the Roman World.— After the victory 
at Philippi, Antony crossed the Hellespont to care for the 
Asiatic provinces, while Octavius returned to Italy to attend to 
the distribution of lands among the soldiers. Jealousies arose 
almost immediately between the conquerors, and civil war was 
imminent. But Antony and Octavius were brought together at 
Brundisium, where, through the mediation of friends, a recon- 
ciliation was effected, and the Roman world was redistributed 



350 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

among the triumvirs. To Antony were given, to settle and rule, 
all the provinces and tributary states east of the Adriatic; to 
Octavius were assigned Italy and Spain ; and to Lepidus was 
given the province of Africa. The year following this arrange- 
ment, Sextius Pompey, son of Pompey the Great, who with 
a formidable fleet held the Mediterranean against the trium- 
virs, and cut off the supply of corn from Rome, was admit- 
ted to the league. He was assigned the principal islands of 
the Mediterranean, and also the province of Achaia, with the 
understanding that he should supply Italy with corn. 

The league, based as it was entirely upon selfish and per- 
sonal considerations, was naturally soon broken. A slight 
pretext led Octavius to make war upon Sextius Pompey, who, 
fleeing to Asia Minor, was there murdered. Lepidus then 
entered into a dispute with Octavius respecting Sicily, which 
resulted in the former's expulsion from the triumvirate. Again 
the Roman world, as in the times of Caesar and Pompey, was 
in the hands of two masters — Antony in the East, and Oc- 
tavius in the West. 

Antony and Cleopatra. — When Antony, after the battle of 
Philippi, went into Asia for the purpose of settling the affairs 
of the vassal states and provinces there, he summoned Cleo- 
patra, the fair queen of Egypt, to meet him at Tarsus, in Cili- 
cia, there to give account to him for the aid she had rendered 
the liberators. She obeyed the summons, confident in the 
power of her charms to appease the wrath of the triumvir. 
She ascended the Cydnus in a gilded barge, with oars of sil- 
ver, and sails of purple silk. Beneath awnings wrought of the 
richest manufactures of the East, the beautiful queen, attired to 
personate Venus, reclined amidst lovely attendants dressed to 
represent cupids and nereids. Antony was completely fasci- 
nated, as had been the great Caesar before him, by the dazzling 
beauty of the " Serpent of the Nile." Enslaved by her en- 
chantments, and charmed by her brilliant wit (for the fair queen 



THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 35 1 

possessed not only personal beauty, but was gifted in song and 
language), Antony, in the pleasures of her company, forgot all 
else — ambition and honor and country. 

The clays and the nights were spent in one round of ban- 
quets, games, and revelries. It is said that the queen, at the 
close of a banquet, in order to win a wager that she could 
consume ten million sesterces at one meal, dissolved, in a cup 
of vinegar, a pearl of fabulous worth, and then carelessly swal- 
lowed the costly draught. In ingenious ways she amused the 
Roman voluptuary, arraying herself now as Venus and then as 
Isis, while he personated Bacchus and Osiris. Upon their fish- 
ing excursions she employed divers to fasten enormous salt 
fishes to the hook of her lover. 

Once, indeed, Antony did rouse himself and break away 
from his enslavement, to lead the Roman legions against the 
Parthians. With an army of one hundred thousand men he 
crossed the Euphrates and the Tigris, and with reckless dar- 
ing plunged amidst the defiles and snowy passes of the moun- 
tains beyond. But the storms of approaching winter, and the 
incessant attacks of the Parthian cavalry, at length forced him 
to make a hurried and disastrous retreat. The loss, the suf- 
fering, and the disgrace attending this ill-fated expedition 
rivalled the calamities and dishonor of the memorable defeat 
of Crassus. Antony hastened back to Egypt, and sought to 
forget his shame and disappointment amidst the revels of the 
Egyptian court. 

The Battle of Actium. — Affairs could not long continue in 
their present course. Antony had put away his faithful wife 
Octavia for the beautiful Cleopatra. It was whispered at Rome, 
and not without truth, that he proposed to make Alexandria 
the capital of the Roman world, and announce Caesarion, son 
of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, as heir of the empire. Ail 
Rome was stirred. It was evident that a conflict was at hand 
in which the question for decision would be whether the West 



352 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

should rule the East, or the East rule the West. All eyes were 
instinctively turned to Octavius as the defender of Italy, and 
the supporter of the sovereignty of the Eternal City. Both 
parties made the most gigantic preparations. Octavius met 
the combined fleets of Antony and Cleopatra just off the prom- 
ontory of Actium, on the Grecian coast. While the fate of the 
battle that there took place was yet undecided, Cleopatra, 
completely unnerved with fear, turned her galley in flight. 
The Egyptian ships, to the number of fifty, followed her ex- 
ample. Antony, as soon as he perceived the withdrawal of 
Cleopatra, forgot all else, and followed in her track with a 
swift galley. Overtaking the fleeing queen, the infatuated man 
was received aboard her vessel, and became her partner in the 
disgraceful flight. 

The abandoned fleet and army surrendered to Octavius. 
The conqueror was now sole master of the civilized world. 
From this decisive battle (31 B.C.) are usually dated the end of 
the republic and the beginning of the empire. Some, how- 
ever, make the establishment of the empire date from the year 
28 B.C., as it was not until then that Octavius was formally in- 
vested with imperial powers. 

Deaths of Antony and Cleopatra. — Octavius pursued Antony 
to Egypt, where the latter, deserted by his army, and informed 
by a messenger from the false queen that she was dead, com- 
mitted suicide. This was exactly what Cleopatra anticipated 
he would do, and hoped thus to rid herself of a now burden- 
some lover. When, however, the dying Antony, in accordance 
with his wish, was borne to her, the old love returned and he 
expired in her arms. 

Cleopatra then sought to enslave Octavius with her charms ; 
but, failing in this, and becoming convinced that he proposed 
to take her to Rome that she might there grace his triumph, she 
took her own life, being in. the thirty-eighth year of her age. 
Tradition says that she effected her purpose by applying a 



THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 353 

poisonous asp to her arm. But it is really unknown in what 
way she killed herself. It is only certain that, when the 
chamber of the mausoleum in which she had shut herself up 
was one day entered by the officers of Octavius, she was found 
lying dead among her attendants, with no mark of injury upon 
her body. 

16* 



354 ANCIENT HISTORY. 



CHRONOLOGICAL ANNALS OF ROMAN REPUBLIC. 

B.C. 

Republic established and first consuls elected 509 

First secession of plebeians 494 

Cincinnatus made dictator 458 

Election of first decemvirs 451 

First censors elected 445 

Capture of Veii 39 6 

Sack of Rome by Gauls under Brennus 390 

Samnite wars 343-290 

War with Pyrrhus 280-274 

First Punic War 264-241 

Second " 218-201 

Third " 149-146 

Destruction of Numantia 133 

First Servile War i34~ l 3 2 

Jugurthine War 1 1 1-104 

Marius defeats Teutones and Cimbri 102-101 

Civil wars of Marius and Sulla 88-78 

Pompey defeats Mediterranean pirates 66 

Conspiracy of Catiline 63-62 

First triumvirate formed 60 

Conquests of Caesar in Gaul and Britain 5^~5° 

Battle of Pharsalia ; Pompey flees to Egypt and is murdered 48 

Battle of Thapsus ; Caesar becomes dictator of Roman world 46 

Murder of Caesar 44 

Battle of Philippi ; deaths of Brutus and Cassius 42 

Republic ends with battle of Actium between Octavius and Antony 31 



THS ROMAN EMPIRE. 355 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

I 

THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 
(From 31 B.C. to a.d. 180.) 

Reign of Augustus Caesar (31 b.c. to a.d. 14). — The hundred 
years of strife which ended with the battle of Actium left the 
Roman republic, exhausted and helpless, in the hands of one 
wise enough and strong enough to remould its crumbling frag- 
ments in such a manner that the nation, which seemed ready 
to fall to pieces, might prolong its existence for another five 
hundred years. It was a great work thus to create anew, 
as it were, out of anarchy and chaos, a political fabric that 
should exhibit such elements of perpetuity and strength. 
"The establishment of the Roman empire," says Merivale, 
"was, after all, the greatest political work that any human be- 
ing ever wrought. The achievements of Alexander, of Caesar, 
■of Charlemagne, of Napoleon, are not to be compared with it 
for a moment." 

The government which Octavius established was a monarchy 
in fact, but a republic in form. Mindful of the fate of Julius 
Caesar, who fell because he gave the lovers of the Republic rea- 
son to think that he coveted the title of king, Octavius care- 
fully veiled his really absolute sovereignty under the forms 
of the old republican state. The Senate still existed; but so 
completely subjected were its members to the influence of the 
conqueror that the only function it really exercised was the 
conferring of honors and titles and abject flatteries upon its 
master. All the republican offices remained ; but Octavius 
absorbed and exercised all their powers and functions. He 
was at once consul, tribune, censor, and pontifex maximus. All 



35b* ANCIENT HISTORY. 

the republican magistrates — the consuls, the tribunes, the prae- 
tors — were elected as usual ; but they were simply the nomi- 
nees and creatures of the emperor. They were the effigies and 
figure-heads to delude the people into believing that the Re- 
public still existed. Never did a people seem more content 
with the shadow after the loss of the substance. 

The Senate, acting under the inspiration of Octavius, with- 
held from him the title of king, which ever since the expulsion 
of the Tarquins, five centuries before this time, had been in- 
tolerable to the people ; but they conferred upon him the titles 
of Imperator and Augustus, the latter having been hitherto 
sacred to the gods. The sixth month of the Roman year was 
called Augustus in his honor, an act in imitation of that by 
which the preceding month had been given the name of Julius 
in honor of Julius Caesar. 

The domains over which Augustus held sway were imperial 
in magnitude. They stretched from the Atlantic to the Eu- 
phrates, and upon the north were hemmed by the forests of 
Germany and the bleak steppes of Scytiiia, and were bordered 
on the south by the sands of the African desert and the dreary 
wastes of Arabia, which seemed the boundaries set by nature 
to dominion in those directions. Within these limits were 
crowded more than 100,000,000 people, embracing every con- 
ceivable condition and variety in race and culture, from the 
rough barbarians of Gaul to the pampered citizens of Rome, 
and from the fierce Numidian, careless of ease and luxury, to 
the refined voluptuary of the East. 

The policy of Augustus aimed at the fusion of the varied 
elements of the empire into a single national life. His wise 
and firm administration of the government did much towards 
effecting this worthy purpose. He made a tour through all 
the Eastern provinces, founded colonies, granted privileges, 
bestowed honors, and by many generous and well-considered 
acts attached all classes to the new empire. He brought back 
with him the long-lost eagles of Crassus, which he had de- 



THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 357 

manded and received of the Parthian king. Amidst the great- 
est rejoicing, they were placed in the Temple of Mars the Aven- 
ger at Rome. 

The reign of Augustus lasted forty-four years, from 31 B.C. 
to a.d. 14. It embraced the happiest period in the annals of 
Rome. Under the patronage of the emperor, and that of his 
favorite minister Maecenas, poets and writers flourished and 
made this the "golden age" of Latin literature. During this 
reign Virgil composed his immortal epic of the "^Eneid," 
and Horace his famous odes ; while Livy wrote his inimi- 
table history, and Ovid his " Metamorphoses." Many who la- 
mented the fall of the republic sought solace in the pursuit of 
letters ; and in this they were encouraged by Augustus, as it 
gave occupation to many restless spirits that would otherwise 
have been engaged in political intrigues against his govern- 
ment. 

Augustus was also a munificent patron of architecture and 
art. He adorned the capital with many splendid structures. 
Said he proudly, " I found Rome a city of brick ; I left it a 
city of marble." The population of the city at this time was 
probably about one million. Two other cities of the empire, 
Antioch and Alexandria, are thought to have had each about 
this same number of citizens. These cities, too, were made 
magnificent with architectural and art embellishments. 

Octavius was the first to moderate the ambition of the Ro- 
mans, and to counsel them not to attempt to conquer any more 
of the world, but rather to devote their energies to the work of 
consolidating the domains already acquired. He saw the dan- 
gers that would attend any further extension of the boundaries 
of the state. 

Although the principate of Augustus was disturbed by some 
troubles upon the frontiers, still never before, perhaps, did the 
world enjoy so long a period of general rest from the prepara- 
tion and turmoil of war. Three times during this auspicious 
reign the gates of the Temple of Janus at Rome, which were 



358 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

open in time of war and closed in time of peace, were shut. 
Only twice before during the entire history of the city had they 
been closed, so constantly had the Roman people been en- 
gaged in strife. It was in the midst of this happy reign, when 
profound peace prevailed throughout the civilized world, that 
Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea. The event was un- 
heralded at Rome ; yet it was filled with profound significance, 
not only for the Roman Empire, but for the world. 

The latter years of the life of Augustus were clouded both 
with domestic bereavement and national disaster. His beloved 
nephew Marcellus, and his two grandsons Caius and Lucius, 
whom he purposed making his heirs, were all removed by 
death; and then away beneath the German forest his general 
Varus, who had attempted to rule the freedom-loving Teutons 
as he had governed the abject Asiatics of the Eastern prov- 
inces, was surprised by the barbarians, led by their brave chief 
Hermann — Arminius, as called by the Romans — and his army 
destroyed almost to a man (a.d. 9). Forty thousand of the 
legionaries lay dead and unburied in the tangled woods and 
morasses of Germany. 

The disaster caused great consternation at Rome ; for it was 
feared that the German tribes would now cross the Rhine, 
effect an alliance with the Gauls, and then that these united 
hordes would pour over the Alps into Italy. Augustus, wearied 
and worn already with advancing age, the cares of empire, and 
domestic affliction, was inconsolable. He paced his palace in 
agony, and kept exclaiming, " O Varus ! Varus ! give me back 
my legions ; give me back my legions !" But Tiberius, whom 
Augustus, after the death of Caius and of Lucius, had appointed 
his heir and successor, so carefully guarded the Rhine that the 
Germans did not attempt the passage, and Italy was saved 
from the threatened invasion. 

The victory of Arminius over the Roman legions was an 
event of the greatest significance in the history of European 
civilization. Germany was almost overrun by the Roman army. 



THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 359 

The Teutonic tribes were on the point of being completely 
subjugated and Romanized, as had been the Celts of Gaul be- 
fore them. Had this occurred, the entire history of Europe 
would have been changed; for the Germanic element is the 
one that has given shape and color to the important events of 
the last fifteen hundred years. Those barbarians, too, were 
our ancestors. Had Rome succeeded in exterminating or 
enslaving them, Britain, as Creasy says, would never have 
received the name of England, and the great English nation 
would never have had an existence. 

In the year a.d. 14, Augustus died, having reached the sev- 
enty-sixth year of his age. His last words to the friends gath- 
ered about his bedside were : "If I have acted well my part in 
life's drama, greet my departure with your applause." It was 
believed that the soul of Augustus ascended visibly amidst the 
flames of his funeral pyre. By decree of the Senate divine wor- 
ship was accorded to him, and temples were erected in his 
honor. 

One of the most important of the acts of Augustus, in its in- 
fluence upon following events, was the formation of the Prae- 
torian Guard, which was designed for a sort of body-guard to 
the emperor. In the succeeding reign this body of soldiers, 
about ten thousand in number, was given a permanent camp 
alongside the city walls. It soon became a formidable power 
in the state, and made and unmade emperors at will. 

Reign of Tiberius (a.d. 14-37). — Tiberius succeeded to an 
unlimited sovereignty. The Senate conferred upon him all the 
titles that had been worn by Augustus. One of the first acts 
of Tiberius gave the last blow to the ancient republican insti- 
tutions. He took away from the popular assembly the privilege 
of electing the consuls and praetors, and bestowed the same 
upon the Senate, which, however, must elect from candidates 
presented by the emperor. As the Senate was the creation of 
the emperor, who as censor made up the list of its members, 



360 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

of course he was now the source and fountain of all power and 
patronage. During the first years of his reign, Tiberius used 
his practically unrestrained authority with moderation and jus- 
tice, being seemingly desirous of promoting the best interests 
of all classes in his vast empire. 

The beginning of his reign was marked by revolts among 
the legions, the most serious discontent manifesting itself 
among those guarding the Rhine, who wished to raise to the 
throne their favorite general Germanicus, nephew of Tiberius. 
But Germanicus sternly refused to take part in such an act of 
treachery, reproved his soldiers, and then drew their attention 
from such thoughts of disloyalty by leading them across the 
Rhine to recover the lost standards of Varus. He was so far 
successful in this bold enterprise as to retake the lost eagles 
and capture the wife of Arminius. But at this moment, when 
Germanicus seemed upon the point of laying the Roman yoke 
upon the tribes of Germany, Tiberius, moved, it is conjectured, 
by jealousy, recalled him from the Rhenish frontier, and sent 
him into the Eastern provinces, where he soon after died, 
having been poisoned, as was charged, by an agent of the 
jealous emperor. 

Despotic power is a dangerous possession, likely to prove 
terribly harmful, alike to him who wields it as well as to those 
over whom it is exercised. Very few natures can withstand 
the seductive temptations, the corrupting influences, of unre- 
strained and irresponsible authority. Hence the long series 
of excesses and crimes which we shall now find making up a 
large part of the annals of the Roman emperors. 

Tiberius, whatever may have been the intentions with which 
he began his reign, soon yielded to the baser passions of his 
nature, plunged into the grossest sensuality, and perpetrated 
the most infamous crimes against the lives and liberties of his 
subjects. He caused to be revived an old law, known as the 
law of majestas, which made it a capital offence for any one 
to speak a careless word, or even to entertain an unfriendly 



THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 36 1 

thought, respecting the emperor. "It was dangerous to speak 
and equally dangerous to keep silent," says Leighton, " for 
silence even might be construed into discontent." Rewards 
were offered to informers, and hence sprang up a class of per- 
sons called " delators," who acted as spies upon society. Often 
false charges were preferred, to gratify personal enmity; and 
many, especially of the wealthy class, were accused and put to 
death that their property might be confiscated. 

Tiberius appointed, as his chief minister and commander of 
the praetorians, one Sejanus, a man of the lowest and most cor- 
rupt life. This officer actually persuaded Tiberius to retire to 
the little island of Capreae, in the Bay of Naples, and leave to 
him the management of affairs at Rome. The emperor built 
several villas in different parts of the beautiful islet, and, hav- 
ing gathered about him a company of congenial souls, plunged 
into the most shameless debaucheries. The days were passed 
in high revels, and the nights in abominable orgies. One of 
his companions, whose only qualification was that he had swal- 
lowed five flasks of wine in succession, was appointed to a 
high office. For five years the revelry went on. 

Meanwhile, Sejanus was ruling at Rome very much accord- 
ing to his own will. No man's life was safe. He murdered 
the most prominent citizens, and caused the heirs to the throne 
to be put out of the way, in order that Tiberius might be free 
to name him as his successor. He even grew so bold as to 
plan the assassination of the emperor himself. His designs, 
however, became known to Tiberius; and the infamous and 
disloyal minister was arrested and put to death. 

The naturally cruel, suspicious, and misanthropic spirit of 
Tiberius now became more morose and gloomy than before. 
Such was his distrust of the people that, when he visited Rome 
after the execution of his minister, he did not dare approach the 
city by land, but was borne up the Tiber in a galley, the crowds 
being cleared from the banks as the barge advanced slowly up 
the stream. Scarcely had he reached the confines of the city, 



362 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

when, overcome probably by fear, he ordered the galley to be 
turned about ; and his flight was never intermitted until he was 
again upon the island of Capreae. Here he plunged anew into 
his unseemly indulgences, meanwhile keeping the streets of 
Rome wet with the blood of his victims. Multitudes sought 
refuge from his tyrannies in suicide. " I care not that the 
people hate me," said he, " if only they obey me." 

Finally, in the year a.d. 37, death relieved the world of the 
monster, in the twenty-third year of his reign and the seventy- 
eighth of his age. His end was probably hastened by his at- 
tendants, who are believed to have smothered the wretch in his 
bed when in the last stages of a mortal illness. His name 
lives in history as the synonym of cruelty, tyranny, and scan- 
dalous debauchery. 

It was in the midst of this disgraceful reign that, in a dis- 
tant province of the Roman Empire, the Saviour was crucified. 

Reign of Caligula (a.d. 37-41). — Caius Caesar, better known 
as Caligula, son of Germanicus, was only twenty-five years of 
age when the death of Tiberius called him to the throne. His 
surname Caligula was given him by the German legions, be- 
cause, when a little boy, he was kept by his father in the camp, 
and to please the men dressed like a little soldier with military 
buskins (caligce). 

His career was very similar to that of Tiberius. At first he 
ruled with mildness, but soon rivalled his predecessor in his 
excesses and cruelties. He seemed transformed into a mad- 
man. Indeed, it is the charitable surmise of many that the 
taint of insanity ran in the Claudian blood, and that the 
terrible malady was developed in the different members of 
the family who wore the imperial purple, by the excitements 
and indulgences of their lives. 

After a few months spent in arduous application to the af- 
fairs of the empire, during which time his many acts of kind- 
ness and piety won for him the affections of all classes, the 



THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 363 

mind of the young emperor became unsettled. His rest was 
feverish; and often he paced the halls of his palace the night 
through with wild and incoherent ravings. He soon gave 
himself up to the most detestable dissipations. The cruel 
sports of the amphitheatre possessed for him a strange fasci- 
nation. When animals failed, he ordered spectators to be 
seized indiscriminately and thrown to the beasts. He even 
entered the lists himself, and fought as a gladiator upon the 
arena. 

Stories without number are told illustrating his insanities 
and extravagances. Upon the death of one of his sisters, he 
decreed that "if any one dared mourn for her death he should 
be punished, for she had become a goddess; if any one re- 
joiced at her deification, he should be punished also, for she 
was dead." He is said to have caused persons to be tortured 
at his banquets, that their cries and groans might add to the 
enjoyment of the meal. He lamented that no great calamity 
marked his reign, such as that which had occurred in the reign 
of Tiberius, when fifty thousand persons lost their lives in the 
fall of the great theatre at Fidenas. In a sanguinary mood, he 
wished that " the people of Rome had but one neck." He 
built a bridge from his palace on the Palatine to the temple on 
the Capitoline, that he might be "next neighbor" to Jupiter. 
In order to rival the Hellespontine bridges of Xerxes, he con- 
structed a bridge over the bay at Baias. The structure broke 
beneath the triumphal procession on the day of dedication ; 
and Caligula, delighted with the spectacle of the struggling 
victims, forbade any one to attempt to save the drowning. 

He emulated the example of Cleopatra by dissolving costly 
gems and drinking them at a draught. A single dinner cost 
four hundred thousand dollars. As an insult to his nobles he 
gave out that he proposed to make his favorite horse, Incitatus, 
consul, and frequently invited the steed from his ivory stable to 
eat gilded grain at the imperial board. Tiberius had left Calig- 
ula a treasure of one hundred millions of dollars, all of which 



364 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

he spent in a single year. While it lasted, however, he en- 
joyed it to the utmost by " wading barefoot through his heaps 
of gold, or with insane delight rolling himself upon them like a 
dog." He personated in turn all the gods and goddesses, 
arraying himself at one time as Hercules or Bacchus, and again 
as Juno or Venus. He declared himself divine, set up his 
statues for worship, and even removed the head of Jupiter's 
statues and put on his own. 

During his reign he set out on an expedition against Britain ; 
but on reaching the sea he set his soldiers to work collecting 
shells along the beach, which " spoils of the ocean " he then 
sent back to Rome as the trophies of his enterprise. A cam- 
paign against the Germans ended at the Rhenish frontier with 
not captives enough in his hands for a triumph ; accordingly, 
he hired, so the story runs, a great number of Gauls to person- 
ate German prisoners, and thus supplied the embarrassing de- 
ficiency. 

After four years the insane career of Caligula was brought 
to a close by some of the officers of the praetorian guard whom 
he had wantonly insulted. 

Reign of Claudius (a.d. 41-54). — Caligula had named no 
successor. The Senate began to debate whether the Republic 
should not be restored ; but, while they were engaged in the 
discussion, the praetorians brought forward Claudius, the 
brother of Germanicus, whom they had found concealed in 
the palace, and declared him emperor. Claudius, now an old 
man, had been from a child feeble in body and mind ; yet now 
.vhen he was placed, much to his own amazement and distress, 
at the head of the Roman state, he exhibited no inconsiderable 
ability, and certainly displayed much zeal and assiduity in the 
administration of affairs. 

The reign of Claudius was signalized by the conquest of 
Britain. A century had now passed since the invasion of the 
island by Julius Csesar, who, as has been seen, simply made a 



THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 365 

reconnoissance of the island and then withdrew. Meanwhile, 
a large trade had grown up between the island and the main- 
land, where the arts and products of Roman civilization were 
being rapidly disseminated. This intercourse had given the 
Romans a considerable knowledge of Britain, and they coveted 
the country. Claudius conquered all the southern portion of 
the island, and founded many colonies, which in time became 
important centres of Roman trade and culture. The leader of 
the Britons was Caractacus, chief of the Silures, a tribe which 
held the mountains of Wales. He was taken captive and 
carried to Rome. Gazing in astonishment upon the magnifi- 
cence of the imperial city, he exclaimed, "How can a people 
possessed of such splendor at home envy Caractacus his hum- 
ble cottage in Britain?" 

Claudius distinguished his reign by the execution of many 
important works. At the mouth of the Tiber he constructed 
a magnificent harbor, called the Portus Romanus. The Clau- 
dian Aqueduct, which he completed, was a stupendous work, 
bringing water to the city from a distance of forty-five miles. 

The delight of the people in gladiatorial shows had at this 
time become almost an insane frenzy. Claudius determined 
to give an entertainment that should render insignificant all 
similar efforts. Upon a large lake, whose sloping banks af- 
forded seats for the vast multitudes of spectators, he exhibited 
a naval battle, in which two opposing fleets, bearing nineteen 
thousand gladiators, fought as though in real battle, till the 
water was filled with thousands of bodies, and covered with the 
fragments of the broken ships. 

Throughout his life Claudius was ruled by intriguing favor- 
ites and unworthy wives. His third consort, whom all the 
world have concurred in calling the " infamous Messalina," 
engaged in such shameful intrigues against the honor and life 
of her husband that he at last ordered her to be executed. 
Those who wished to exaggerate the stolid imbecility of Clau- 
dius reported that the emperor, forgetting the incident, fre- 



$66 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

quently inquired afterwards of his slaves why his wife was 
absent from the table. For his fourth wife Claudius married 
the " wicked Agrippina," who secured his death by means of 
a dish of poisoned mushrooms, in order to make place for the 
succession of her -son Nero. 

Reign of Nero (a.d. 54-68). — Nero was fortunate in having 
for his preceptor the great philosopher and moralist Seneca; 
but never was teacher more unfortunate in his pupil. For five 
years Nero, under the influence of Seneca and Burrhus, the 
latter the commander of the praetorians, ruled with moderation 
and equity. But his own mother, Agrippina, intrigued against 
him in favor of a younger son ; and Nero, after failing in an at- 
tempt to drown her while she was crossing the bay at Baiae, 
secured her death by the hand of an assassin. He now broke 
away from the guidance of his tutor Seneca, and entered upon 
a career filled with crimes of almost incredible enormity. The 
dagger and poison — the latter a means of murder the use of 
which at Rome had become a "fine art," and was in the hands 
of those who made it a regular profession — were employed 
almost unceasingly, to remove persons that had incurred his 
hatred, or who possessed wealth that he coveted. Like Calig- 
ula, he degraded the imperial purple by contending in the glad- 
iatorial combats of the arena and in the games of the circus. 

It was in the tenth year of his reign that the famous Great 
Fire laid more than half of Rome in ashes. Temples, monu- 
ments, and buildings of every description were swept away by 
the flames, that surged like a sea through the valleys and about 
the base of the hills occupied by the city. The people, in the 
dismay of the moment, were ready to catch up any rumor re- 
specting the origin of the fire. It was reported that Nero had 
ordered the conflagration to be lighted, and that from the roof 
of his palace he had enjoyed the spectacle, and amused him- 
self by singing a poem which he himself had written, entitled 
the "Sack of Troy." 



THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 367 

Nero did everything in his power to discredit the rumor. 
He went in person amidst the sufferers, and distributed money 
with his own hand. To further turn attention from himself, he 
accused the Christians of having conspired to destroy the city, 
in order to help out their prophecies. The doctrine which was 
taught by some of the new sect respecting the second coming 
of Christ, and the destruction of the world by fire, lent color 
to the charge. The persecution that followed was one of the 
most cruel recorded in the history of the Church. Many vic- 
tims were covered with pitch and burned at night, to serve 
as torches in the imperial gardens. Tradition preserves the 
names of the apostles Peter and Paul as victims of this Nero- 
nian persecution. 

As to Rome, the conflagration was a blessing in disguise. 
Requisitions of money and material were made upon all the 
Roman world for the rebuilding of the burnt districts. The 
city rose from its ashes as quickly as Athens from her ruins 
at the close of the Persian wars. The new buildings were 
made fire-proof; and the narrow, crooked streets reappeared 
as broad and beautiful avenues. Water was distributed from 
the aqueducts through all the houses and grounds. A con- 
siderable portion of the burnt region was appropriated by 
Nero for the buildings and grounds of an immense palace, 
called the " Golden House." It covered so much space that 
the people " maliciously hinted " that Nero had fired the old 
city, in order to make room for it. 

The emperor secured money for his enormous expenditures 
by new extortions, murders, and confiscations. No one of 
wealth knew but that his turn might come next. A conspiracy 
was formed among the nobles to relieve the state of the mon- 
ster. The plot was discovered, and again "the city was filled 
with funerals." Lucan the poet, and Seneca, the old preceptor 
of Nero, both fell victims to the tyrant's rage. 

Nero now made a tour through the East, and there plunged 
deeper and deeper into every shame, sensuality, and crime. 



368 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

The tyranny and the disgrace were no longer endurable. Al- 
most at the same moment the legions in several of the prov- 
inces revolted. The Senate decreed that he was a public 
enemy, and condemned him to a disgraceful death by scourg- 
ing, to avoid which he instructed a slave how to give him a 
fatal thrust. His last words were, " What a loss my death will 
be to art !" 

Nero was the sixth and last of the Julian line. The family 
of the Great Caesar was now extinct ; but the name remained, 
and was adopted by all the succeeding emperors. 

Galba, Otho, and Vitellius (a.d. 68-69). — These three names 
are usually grouped together, as their reigns were all short and 
uneventful. The succession, upon the death of Nero and the 
extinction in him of the Julian line, was in dispute, and the 
legions in different quarters supported the claims of their favor- 
ite leaders. One after another the three aspirants named were 
killed in bloody struggles for the imperial purple. The last, 
Vitellius, was hurled from the throne by the soldiers of Vespa- 
sian, the old and beloved commander of the legions in Pales- 
tine, which were at this time engaged in war with the Jews. 

Reign of Vespasian (a.d. 69-79).— It was tne happy fortune 
of Flavius Vespasian to have his reign mark the beginning of 
a period, embracing three reigns, so free from tyranny and so 
prosperous that it is called, after him, " The Flavian Age." The 
reign of Vespasian was signalized both by famous military 
achievements abroad and by stupendous works undertaken at 
Rome. 

After one of the most harassing sieges recorded in history, 
Jerusalem was taken by Titus, son of Vespasian. The Temple 
was destroyed, and more than one million of Jews that were 
crowded in the city are believed to have perished. Great 
multitudes suffered death by crucifixion. The miserable rem- 
nants of the nation were scattered everywhere over the world. 



THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 369 

Josephus, the great historian, accompanied the conqueror to 
Rome. In imitation of Nebuchadnezzar, Titus robbed the 
Temple of its sacred utensils, and bore them away as trophies. 
Upon the triumphal arch at Rome that bears his name may be 
seen at the present day the sculptured representation of the 
golden candlestick, which was one of the memorials of the war. 

In the opposite corner of the empire a dangerous revolt of 
the Gauls was suppressed, and in the island of Britain the Ro- 
man commander Agricola subdued or crowded back the native 
tribes until he had extended the frontiers of the empire into 
what is now Scotland. Then, as a protection against the in- 
cursions of the Caledonians, the ancestors of the Scottish 
Highlanders, he constructed a line of fortresses from the Frith 
of Forth to the Frith of Clyde. 

Vespasian rebuilt the Capitoline temple, which had been 
burned during the struggle between his soldiers and the ad- 
herents of Vitellius; he constructed a new forum which bore 
his own name; and also began the erection of the celebrated 
Flavian amphitheatre, which was completed by his successor. 
After a most prosperous reign of ten years, Vespasian died 
a.d. 79, the first emperor after Augustus that did not meet with 
a violent death. At the last moment he requested his attend- 
ants to raise him upon his feet that he might " die standing," 
as befitted a Roman emperor. 

Reign of Titus (a.d. 79-81). — In a short reign of two years 
Titus won the title, the " Delight of Mankind." He was un- 
wearied in acts of benevolence and in bestowal of favors. It 
is of this prince that the story is related that, having let a day 
slip by without some act of kindness performed, he exclaimed, 
reproachfully, " I have lost a day." 

Titus completed and dedicated the great Flavian amphi- 
theatre begun by his father, Vespasian. This vast structure, 
which accommodated more than eighty thousand spectators, 
is better known as the Colosseum — a name given it either 

17 



37© ANCIENT HISTORY. 

because of its gigantic proportions, or on account of a colossus 
of Nero which happened to stand near it. The dedicatory 
games lasted one hundred days, and more than five thousand 
wild beasts were killed upon the arena. 

The reign of Titus, though so short, was signalized by two 
great disasters. The first was a conflagration at Rome, which 
was almost as calamitous as the Great Fire in the reign of 
Nero. The second was the destruction, by an eruption of Ve- 
suvius, of the Campanian cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. 
The Romans seem to have been ignorant of the volcanic char- 
acter of Vesuvius ; and these cities, with their beautiful homes, 
temples, and gardens, nestled securely at the foot of the treach- 
erous mountain (Merivale). 

The cities were buried beneath showers of ashes and streams 
of boiling mud and lava. Pliny the elder, the great naturalist, 
venturing too near the mountain to investigate the phenome- 
non, lost his life. In the year 17 13, sixteen centuries after the 
destruction of the cities, the ruins were discovered by some 
persons engaged in digging a well, and since then extensive 
excavations have been made, which have uncovered a large 
part of Pompeii, and revealed to us the streets, homes, theatres, 
baths, shops, temples, and various monuments of the ancient 
city — all of which present to us a very real picture of Roman 
life during the imperial period, two thousand years ago. 

Domitian— Last of the Twelve Caesars (a.d. 81-96).— Domi- 
tian, the brother of Titus, was the last of the line of emperors 
known as "the Twelve Caesars." The title, however, was as- 
sumed, and is applied to all succeeding emperors ; the only 
reason that the first twelve princes are grouped together is be- 
cause the Roman biographer Suetonius completed the lives of 
that number only. 

Domitian was capricious, effeminate, and cruel. His reign 
was an exact contrast to that of his brother Titus. It was one 
succession of extravagances, tyrannies, confiscations, and mur- 



THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 37 1 

ders. Under this emperor took place what is known in Church 
history as "the second persecution of the Christians." This 
class, as well as the Jews, were the special objects of Domi- 
tian's hatred, because they refused to worship the statues of 
himself which he had set up. It is told in illustration of his 
cruel disposition that he occupied his leisure in putting flies to 
death by ingenious tortures. At last the empress, discovering 
that her name headed a list of persons whom the caprice of 
her royal husband had devoted to slaughter, conspired with 
the freedmen of the imperial family to assassinate the tyrant. 
The plot was consummated ; and the last of the Twelve Caesars 
perished in his own palace, and by the hands of members of 
his own household. The Senate ordered his infamous name 
to be erased from the public monuments, and to be blotted 
from the records of the Roman State. 

Reign of Nerva (a.d. 96-98). — The five emperors — Nerva, 
Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines — that succeeded 
Domitian were elected by the Senate, which during this period 
assumed something of its former weight and influence in the 
affairs of the empire. The wise and beneficent administration 
of the government by these rulers secured for them the envia- 
ble distinction of being called " the five good emperors." Nerva 
was an aged senator, who seemed to have preserved the virtues 
of the olden times. He was a native of Crete, and was the first 
ruler chosen from the provincials. From this time on the wear- 
ers of the purple were usually of other than Roman descent. 

If Nerva had any fault, it was that he was too lenient. He 
was himself conscious of his lack of sufficient firmness to con- 
trol the turbulent praetorians and legionaries, and so, early in 
his reign, associated with him in the government the able com- 
mander Trajan, who was at the head of the army on the Rhen- 
ish frontier. Nerva died after a short reign of sixteen months, 
and the sceptre passed into the stronger hands of his chosen 
associate. 



372 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Reign of Trajan (a.d. 98-117). — Trajan was a native of 
Spain, and a soldier by profession and talent. His ambition 
to achieve military renown led him to undertake distant and 
important conquests. It was the policy of Augustus— a policy 
adopted by most of his successors — to make the Danube in 
Europe and the Euphrates in Asia the limits of the Roman 
empire in those respective quarters. But Trajan determined 
to push the frontiers of his dominions beyond both these rivers, 
scorning to permit Nature by these barriers to mark out the 
confines of Roman sovereignty. 

He crossed the Danube by means of a bridge the founda- 
tions of which may still be seen, and subjugated the bold and 
warlike tribes lying behind that stream — tribes that had often 
threatened the peace of the empire. After celebrating his 
victories in a magnificent triumph at Rome, Trajan turned to 
the East. He had scarcely set his foot upon land at Antioch, 
in Northern Syria, before a terrible earthquake shook that city 
to pieces (a.d. 115). One of the consuls was killed, and Trajan 
himself narrowly escaped with his life. With his army, thus 
strangely shattered, reorganized, Trajan led his legions across 
the Euphrates, reduced Armenia, and wrested from Chosroes, 
king of the Parthians, his great capital Ctesiphon, upon the 
Tigris, and most of the territory lying in the basin of that river, 
and which anciently formed the heart of the Babylonian and 
Assyrian monarchies. 

It was during this campaign that Trajan built upon the head- 
waters of the Euphrates — which region at that time seems to 
have been heavily wooded — a large fleet, with which he sailed 
down that river to the Persian Gulf. There visions of the more 
extended expeditions of Alexander fired the ambition of the 
old chieftain, and he is said to have exclaimed, "Were I yet 
young, I would not stop till I too had reached the limits of the 
Macedonian conquest." 

To Trajan belongs the distinction of extending the bounda- 
ries of the empire to the most distant points to which Roman 



THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 373 

ambition and prowess were ever able to push them. But Tra- 
jan was something besides a soldier. He had a taste for litera- 
ture, and under his patronage wrote Juvenal, Plutarch, and the 
younger Pliny; and, moreover, as is true of almost all great 
conquerors, he had a perfect passion for building. He adorned 
not only Rome, but many of the cities of the distant provinces, 
with splendid temples, theatres, and various architectural mon- 
uments. An ancient writer declares that "he built the world 
over ;" and by Constantine he was compared to " a wall-flower, 
because his name was so often seen inscribed upon the front 
of his innumerable buildings." 

Among the great works with which he embellished the capi- 
tal was the Trajan Forum. Here he erected the celebrated 
marble shaft known as Trajan's Column. It is one hundred 
and forty-seven feet high, and is wound from base to summit 
by a spiral band of sculptures, containing more than twenty- 
five thousand human figures. The column is nearly as perfect 
to-day as when reared eighteen centuries ago. It was intend- 
ed to commemorate the Dacian conquests of Trajan j and its 
pictured sides are the best, and almost the only, record we now 
possess of those Danubian campaigns. Trajan also enlarged 
the Circus Maximus, drawing out its walls to such an immense 
circuit that it could accommodate two or three hundred thou- 
sand spectators. 

Trajan died a.d. 117, after a reign of nineteen years, one of 
the most prosperous and fortunate that had yet befallen the 
lot of the Roman people. The Senate early in his reign had 
conferred upon him the title of Optimus, the "Best." After 
him it was thought a graceful compliment to pay an emperor 
to say that " he was more fortunate than Augustus and better 
than Trajan." 

Reign of Hadrian (a.d. 1 17-138). — Hadrian, a kinsman of 
Trajan, succeeded him in the imperial office. He possessed 
great ability, and displayed admirable moderation and prudence 



374 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

in the administration of the government. He gave up the ter- 
ritory conquered by Trajan, withdrawing the legions from the 
districts beyond the Danube and the Euphrates — breaking down 
the bridge Trajan had built over the former — and making those 
streams once more the boundaries of the empire. He saw 
clearly that the authority of Rome could be upheld in those 
distant regions only by the constant and lavish expenditure of 
men and treasure. Indeed, so active and threatening were the 
enemies of the empire in the East, and so daring and numer- 
ous were now become its barbarian assailants of the North, 
that there was reason for the greatest anxiety lest they should 
even break through the older and stronger lines, and pour their 
devastating hordes over the provinces. 

More than fifteen years of his reign were spent by Hadrian 
in making tours of inspection through all the different provinces 
of the empire. He visited Britain, and secured the Roman 
possessions there by drawing a continuous wall across the 
island along the line of towers and fortified camps built by 
Agricola. Next he journeyed through Gaul and Spain, and 
then visited in different tours all the remaining countries 
bordering upon the Mediterranean. He ascended the Nile 
and, traveller-like, carved his name upon the Vocal Memnon. 
The cities which he visited he decorated with temples, theatres, 
and other monuments. Some places, however, including An- 
tioch, which received their emperor ungraciously, he neglected 
to make the recipients of his royal liberality. The atmosphere 
of Athens, with its schools and scholars, was especially con- 
genial to his inquiring spirit; and upon that city he lavished 
large sums in art adornments until it almost seemed as though 
the Periclean Age had returned to the Attic capital. 

In the year 131, the Jews in Palestine, who had in a meas- 
ure recovered from the blow Titus had given their nation, 
broke out in desperate revolt because of the planting of a 
Roman colony upon the then almost desolate site of Jeru- 
salem, and the placing of the statue of Jupiter in the Holy 



THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 375 

Temple. More than half a million of Jews perished in the 
useless struggle, and the survivors were driven into exile — the 
last dispersion of the race. 

The latter years of his reign Hadrian passed at Rome. It 
was here that this princely builder erected his most splendid 
structures. Among these were the Temple of Rome and Venus, 
pronounced the most magnificent of Roman temples; and the 
Mole, or Mausoleum, of Hadrian, an immense structure sur- 
mounted by a gilded dome, erected on the banks of the Tiber, 
and designed as a tomb for himself. After the Colosseum, the 
ruins of this massive edifice (now known as the Castle of St. 
Angelo) are the most imposing remains of the monuments of 
ancient Rome. 

With all his virtues, Hadrian was foolishly vain of his accom- 
plishments, impatient of contradiction, and often most unrea- 
sonable and imperious. It is related that he put to death the 
architect Apollodorus for venturing to criticise the royal taste 
in some architectural matter. Favorinus, the rhetorician, was 
evidently more judicious; for when asked "why he suffered 
the emperor to silence him in an argument on a point of gram- 
mar, he replied, ' It is ill disputing with the master of thirty 
legions.' " 

First Two of the Antonines (a.d. 138-180). — Aurelius An- 
toninus, surnamed Pius, the adopted son of Hadrian and his 
successor, gave the Roman empire an administration singularly 
pure and parental. Of him it has been said that " he was the 
first, and, saving his colleague and successor Aurelius, the only, 
one of the emperors who devoted himself to the task of gov- 
ernment with a single view to the happiness of his people." 
Throughout his long reign of twenty-three years, the empire 
was in a state of profound peace. The attention of the his- 
torian is attracted by no striking events, which, as many have 
not failed to observe, illustrates admirably the oft -repeated 
maxim, " Happy is that people whose annals are brief." 



376 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Antoninus, early in his reign, associated with him in the 
government his adopted son Marcus Aurelius, and upon the 
death of the former (a.d. 161) the latter succeeded quietly to 
his place and work. His studious habits won for him the title 
of "Philosopher." He belonged to the school of the Stoics, 
and was a most thoughtful writer. His " Meditations" breathe 
the tenderest sentiments of devotion and benevolence, and 
make the nearest approach to the spirit of Christianity of all 
the writings of Pagan antiquity. He established an Institu- 
tion, or Home, for orphan girls; and, finding the poorer classes 
throughout Italy burdened by their taxes and greatly in arrears 
in paying them, he caused all the tax-claims to be heaped in 
the Forum and burned. 

Aurelius's tastes and sympathies would have led him to de- 
sire a life passed in retirement and study at the capital ; but 
hostile movements of the Parthians, and especially invasions 
of the barbarians along the Rhenish and Danubian frontiers, 
called him from his books, and forced him to spend most of 
the latter years of his reign in the camp. The Parthians, who 
had violated their treaty with Rome, were chastised by the 
lieutenants of the emperor, and Mesopotamia again fell under 
Roman authority. 

This war drew after it a series of terrible calamities. The 
returning soldiers brought with them the Asiatic plague, which 
swept off vast numbers, especially in Italy, where entire cities 
and districts were depopulated. In the general distress and 
panic, the superstitious people were led to believe that it was 
the new sect of Christians that had called down upon the na- 
tion the anger of the gods. Aurelius permitted a fearful per- 
secution to be instituted against them, during which the famous 
Christian fathers and bishops, Justin Martyr and Polycarp, 
suffered death. 

But pestilence and persecution were both forgotten amidst 
the imperative calls for immediate help that now came from 
the North. The barbarians were pushing in the Roman out- 



THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 377 

posts, and pouring impetuously over the frontiers. To the 
panic of the plague was added this new terror. Aurelius 
placed himself at the head of his legions, and hurried beyond 
the Alps. For many years, amidst the snows of winter and 
the heats of summer, he strove to beat back the assailants of 
the empire. 

Once his army was completely surrounded, and his soldiers 
were dying of thirst, when a violent thunder-storm not only 
relieved their sufferings, but also struck such terror into the 
barbarians as to scatter them in flight. The Romans thought 
that Jupiter Tonans had interfered in their behalf; but the 
Christians that made up the twelfth legion claimed that God 
had sent the rain in answer to their prayers. The Christians 
received the title of the " Thundering Legion ;" while upon the 
Column of Aurelius at Rome — where it may still be seen — was 
carved the scene in which Olympian Jove the Thunderer is 
represented " raining and lightening out of heaven." 

The efforts of the devoted Aurelius checked the inroads of 
the barbarians ; but he could not subdue them, so weakened 
was the empire by the ravages of the pestilence, and so ex- 
hausted was the treasury from the heavy and constant drains 
upon it. At last his weak body gave way beneath the hard- 
ships of his numerous campaigns, and he died in his camp at 
Vindobona (now Vienna), in the nineteenth year of his reign 
and the fifty-ninth of his age (a.d. 180). 

The united voice of the Senate and people pronounced him 
a god, and divine worship was accorded to his statue. Never 
was Monarchy so justified of her children as in the lives and 
works of the first two Antonines. As Merivale, in dwelling 
upon their virtues, very justly remarks, " the blameless career 
of these illustrious princes has furnished the best excuse for 
Caesarism in all after-ages." 

17* 



378 ANCIENT HISTORY. 



ROMAN EMPERORS FROM AUGUSTUS TO MARCUS 

AURELIUS. 

(From 31 B.C. to a.d. 180.) 

Augustus reigns 31 B.C. to a.d. 14 

Tiberius a.d. 14-37 

Caligula 37-41 

Claudius 4*-54 

Nero , 54-68 

Galba 68-69 

Otho 69 

Vitellius 69 

Vespasian 69-79 

Titus 79-81 

Domitian 81-96 

Nerva 96-98 

Trajan 98-117 

Hadrian 1 17-138 

Antoninus Pius 138-161 

\ Marcus Aurelius 161-180 

( Verus associated with Aurelius 161-169 

The first eleven, in connection with Julius Caesar, are called the Twelve 
Caesars. The last five (excluding Verus) are known as the Five Good 
Emperors. 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST. 379 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST. 

(a.d. 180-476.) 

Reign of Commodus (a.d. 180-192). — Under the wise and 
able administration of " the five good emperors " — Nerva, Tra- 
jan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines — the Roman Empire 
reached its culmination in power and prosperity ; and now, un- 
der the enfeebling influences of vice and corruption within, and 
the heavy blows of the barbarians without, begins to decline 
rapidly to its fall. 

Commodus, son of Marcus Aurelius, and the last of the An- 
tonines, was a most unworthy successor of his illustrious father. 
For three years, however, surrounded by the able generals and 
wise counsellors that the prudent administration of the pre- 
ceding emperors had drawn to the head of affairs, Commodus 
ruled with fairness and lenity, when an unsuccessful conspiracy 
against his life seemed suddenly to kindle all the slumbering 
passions of a Nero. An unfortunate word from the assailant, 
who, as he struck an ill-aimed blow with his dagger, exclaimed, 
"The Senate sends you this," determined upon whom the rage 
of the tyrant should be spent. Remorseless murder and pro- 
scription of the most eminent of the senatorial body now fol- 
lowed. He secured the favor of the rabble with the shows of 
the amphitheatre, and purchased the support of the praetorians 
with bribes and flatteries. Thus he was enabled for ten years 
to retain the throne, while perpetrating all manner of cruelties, 
and staining the imperial purple with the most detestable de- 
baucheries and crimes. 

Commodus had a passion for gladiatorial combats, and val- 



380 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

iantly slew antagonists who were armed only with worthless 
foils of lead. He was thus enabled to descend into the arena 
seven hundred and thirty times. The Senate, so obsequiously 
servile had that body become, conferred upon him the title of 
the Roman Hercules, and also voted him the additional sur- 
names of Pius and Felix, and even proposed to change the 
name of Rome and call it Colonia Commodiana. 

In imitation of the ancient demi-god of strength whose name 
he now bore, the emperor, on one occasion, slew with a hun- 
dred arrows — shot from a secure eminence — a hundred lions 
turned loose in the arena ; while at another time, to exhibit his 
prowess, he caused himself, attired in a lion's skin and armed 
with the club of Hercules, to be set upon by persons arrayed 
to represent mythological monsters, and armed with great 
sponges for rocks. He then boldly attacked these terrible 
assailants, and slew them with his club. He delighted in slay- 
ing with his own hand the victims of the sacrifices. It is told 
that he further " amused himself by cutting off the noses of 
persons he pretended to shave." He prudently refused to 
allow a razor to be applied to his own face, but singed off his 
beard. 

The empire was finally relieved of the insane tyrant by some 
members of the royal household, who anticipated his designs 
against themselves by putting him to death. 

The Public Sale of the Empire. — Deep as was the degrada- 
tion into which the shameful conduct of Commodus had sunk 
the empire, it was now to suffer a still deeper degradation at 
the hands of the praetorians. Upon the death of Commodus, 
Pertinax, a distinguished senator, was placed on the throne ; 
but his efforts to enforce discipline among the praetorians 
aroused their anger, and he was slain by them after a short 
reign of only three months. These soldiers then gave out 
notice that they would sell the empire to the highest bidder. 
It was, accordingly, set up for sale at the praetorian camp, 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST. 38 1 

and struck off to Didius Julianus, a wealthy senator, who 
gave $1000 to each of the 12,000 soldiers at this time com- 
posing the guard. So the price of the empire was about 
$12,000,000. 

But these turbulent and insolent soldiers at the capital of 
the empire were not to have things entirely their own way. 
As soon as the news of the disgraceful transaction reached the 
legions on the frontiers, they rose as a single man in indignant 
revolt. Each of the three armies that held the Euphrates, the 
Rhine, and the Danube proclaimed its favorite commander 
emperor. The leader of the Danubian troops was Septimius 
Severus, a man of great energy and force of character. He 
knew that there were other competitors for the throne, and 
that the prize would be his who first seized it. Instantly he 
set his veterans in motion and was soon at Rome. The prae- 
torians were no match for the trained legionaries of the fron- 
tiers, and did not even attempt to defend their emperor, who 
was taken prisoner and put to death after a reign of sixty-five 
days. 

Reign of Septimius Severus (a.d. 1 93-211). — One of the first 
acts of Severus was to organize a new body-guard of 50,000 
legionaries, to take the place of the unworthy praetorians, whom, 
as a punishment for the insult they had offered to the Roman 
state, he disbanded, and banished from the capital, and for- 
bade to approach within a hundred miles of its walls. He 
next proceeded to crush his two rival competitors. Moving 
first against Niger, in the East, he brushed his forces away 
from the Hellespont, where he attempted to dispute his pas- 
sage, and finally broke his legions to pieces on the old battle- 
field of the Issus. Then, hastening back into Europe, he met 
the remaining rival, Albinus, at Lyons, in Gaul, and there de- 
feated him after a most desperate and sanguinary battle. 

Severus was now undisputed master of the empire. He put 
to death forty senators for having favored his late rivals, and 



382 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

completely destroyed the power of their body. Committing 
to the prefect of the new praetorian guard the management of 
affairs at the capital, Severus passed the greater part of his 
long and prosperous reign upon the frontiers. At one time he 
was chastising the Parthians beyond the Euphrates, and at 
another pushing back the Caledonian tribes from the Hadrian 
wall in the opposite corner of his dominions. Finally, in Britain, 
in his camp at York, death overtook him. Just before he died 
he requested that the funeral urn designed for his ashes should 
be brought to him: "Little urn," he moralized, " thou shalt 
soon hold all that will remain of him whom the world could 
not contain." Like many another child of fortune, Severus 
had lived long enough to discover the empty, unsubstantial 
character of the objects of all human ambitions. 

Reign of Caracalla (a.d. 21 1-2 17). — Severus conferred the 
empire upon his two sons, Caracalla and Geta, who were with 
him in Britain. Immediately upon the death of their father 
they set out for Rome, travelling separate all the way, so bit- 
ter were their quarrels. At the capital they lived apart. The 
joint reign ran on thus only a single year, when Caracalla 
stabbed his brother while their mother vainly strove to shield 
him in her arms. He then ordered Papinian, the famous jurist, 
to make a public argument in vindication of the fratricide ; and 
when that great lawyer refused, saying that " it was easier to 
commit such a crime than to justify it," he put him to death. 
Thousands fell victims to his senseless rage. His countenance 
was that of " a wild beast rather than a man." Driven by re- 
morse and fear, he fled from the capital, and wandered about 
the most distant provinces. At Alexandria, on account of some 
uncomplimentary remarks by the citizens upon his appearance, 
he ordered a general massacre. Finally, after a reign of six 
years, the monster was slain in a remote corner of Syria. 

Caracalla's sole political act of real importance was the 
bestowal of citizenship upon all the free inhabitants of the em- 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST. 383 

pire ; and this he did, not to give them a just privilege, but that 
he might collect from them certain special taxes levied by Au- 
gustus on persons receiving bequests or making sales of mer- 
chandise, which only Roman citizens had to pay. Before the 
reign of Caracalla it was only particular classes of subjects, or 
the inhabitants of some particular city or province, that, as a 
mark of special favor, had, from time to time, been admitted to 
the rights of citizenship. By this wholesale act of Caracalla, 
the entire population of the empire was made Roman at least 
in name and nominal privilege. "The city had become the 
world, or, viewed from the other side, the world had become the 
city " (Merivale). 

Reign of Elagabalus (a.d. 218-222). — Upon the death of 
Caracalla, the purple was assumed by Macrinus, the officer who 
had instigated the murder of the emperor. He remained in the 
East, where the severity of his discipline caused the soldiers 
who had raised him to power to revolt. The garrison at Emesa 
set up as emperor Elagabalus, a beautiful boy who in that place 
officiated as high-priest in the temple of the Syrian sun-god, 
and whom the soldiers were led to believe was the son of the 
murdered Caracalla. The legions that adhered to Macrinus 
were quickly crushed, and he himself was slain. 

So un-Roman had the Romans become that this Oriental 
priest, thus thrust forward by the Syrian legions, was at once 
recognized at Rome by both Senate and people as their em- 
peror. He carried to Italy all his Eastern notions and man- 
ners, and there entered upon a short reign of four years, char- 
acterized by all those extravagances and cruel follies that are 
so apt to mark the rule of an Asiatic despot. The palace was 
the scene of the most profligate dissipation. He created a 
senate of women whose duty it was to attend to matters of 
dress, calls, amusements, and etiquette. He introduced at 
Rome the worship of the sun, bearing thither from Syria the 
black conical stone which, like the image of Diana at Ephesus, 



384 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

was believed to have fallen from heaven. " In a solemn pro- 
cession through the streets of Rome, the way was strewn with 
gold-dust ; the black stone, set in precious gems, was placed on 
a chariot drawn by milk-white steeds richly caparisoned. The 
pious emperor held the reins, and, supported by his ministers, 
moved slowly backwards, that he might perpetually enjoy the 
felicity of the divine presence " (Gibbon). The stone was 
deposited in a splendid temple on the Palatine. 

The praetorians, at length tired of their priest-emperor, put 
him to death, threw his body into the Tiber, and set up in his 
place Alexander Severus, a kinsman of the murdered prince. 

Reign of Alexander Severus (a.d. 222-235). — Severus re- 
stored the virtues of the Age of the Antonines. His adminis- 
tration was pure and energetic; but he strove in vain to resist 
the corrupt and downward tendencies of the times. He was 
assassinated, after a reign of fourteen years, by his seditious 
soldiers, who were angered by his efforts to reduce them to dis- 
cipline. They conferred the imperial purple upon an obscure 
officer named Maximin, aThracian peasant, whose sole recom- 
mendation was his gigantic stature, and his great strength of 
limbs. Rome had now sunk to the lowest possible degrada- 
tion. We may pass rapidly over the next fifty years of the 
empire. 

The Thirty Tyrants (a.d. 251-268). — Maximin was followed 
swiftly by Gordian, Philip, and Decius, and then came what is 
called the "Age of the Thirty Tyrants." In every part of the 
kingdom sprang up competitors for the throne — several rivals 
frequently appearing in the field at the same time. The bar- 
barians pressed upon all the frontiers, and thrust themselves 
into all the provinces. The empire seemed on the point of 
falling to pieces. But a fortunate succession of five good em- 
perors — Claudius, Aurelian, Tacitus, Probus, and Cams (a.d. 
268-284) — restored for a time the ancient boundaries, and 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST. 385 

again forced together into some sort of union the fragments 
of the shattered state. 

The Fall of Palmyra.— The most noted of the usurpers of 
authority in the provinces during the period of anarchy of 
which we have spoken was Odenatus. Prince of Palmyra, a 
city occupying an oasis in the midst of the Syrian Desert, mid- 
way between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates. In grati- 
tude for the aid he had rendered the Romans against the 
Parthians, the Senate had bestowed upon him titles and hon- 
ors. When the empire began to show signs of weakness and 
approaching dissolution, Odenatus conceived the ambitious 
project of erecting upon its ruins in the East a great Palmyr- 
ian kingdom, upon his death, his wife, Zenobia, succeeded 
to his authority and to his ambitions. This famous princess 
claimed descent from Cleopatra, and it is certain that in the 
charms of personal beauty she was the rival of the Egyptian 
queen. Boldly assuming the title of "Queen of the East," she 
bade defiance to the emperors of Rome. Aurelian marched 
against her, and, defeating her armies in the open field, drove 
them within the walls of Palmyra. After a long siege the city 
was taken, and finally given to the flames. The adviser of 
the queen, the celebrated rhetorician Longinus, was put to 
death; but Zenobia was spared, and carried a captive to 
Rome. After having been led in golden chains in the trium- 
phal procession of Aurelian, the queen was given a beautiful 
villa in the vicinity of Tibur, where, surrounded by her children, 
she passed the remainder of her checkered life. 

The ruins of Palmyra are among the most interesting re- 
mains of Roman or Grecian civilization in the East. For a 
long time the site even of the city was lost to the civilized 
world. The Bedouins, however, knew the spot, and told 
strange stories of a ruined city with splendid temples and long 
colonnades far away in the Syrian Desert. Their accounts 
awakened an interest in the wonderful city, and towards the 



386 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

close of the seventeenth century some explorers reached the 
spot. The sketches they brought back of the ruins of the 
long-lost city produced almost as much astonishment as did, 
the discoveries afterwards of Botta and Layard at Nineveh. 
Hadrian, the Antonines, and other Roman emperors aided the 
ambitious Palmyrians in the architectural adornment of their 
city. The principal features of the ruins are the remains of 
the great temple of the Sun, and of the Colonnade, which was 
almost a mile in length. Many of the marble columns that 
flanked this magnificent avenue are still erect, stretching in a 
long line over the desert. 

Reign of Diocletian (a.d. 284-305). — The reign of Diocletian 
marks an important era in Roman history. Up to this time 
the imperial government had been more or less carefully con- 
cealed under the forms and names of the old republic. The 
government now became an unveiled and absolute monarchy. 
Diocletian's reforms, though radical, were salutary, and infused 
such fresh vitality into the frame of the dying state as to give 
it a new lease of life for another term of nearly two hundred 
years. 

He determined to divide the numerous and increasing cares 
of the distracted empire, so that it might be ruled from two 
centres — one in the East and the other in the West. In pur- 
suance of this plan, he chose as a colleague a companion 
soldier, Maximian, upon whom he conferred the title of Au- 
gustus. After a few years, finding the cares of the co-sove- 
reignty still too heavy, each sovereign associated with himself 
an assistant, who took the title of Caesar, and was considered 
the son and heir of the emperor. There were thus two Augusti 
and two Caesars. Milan, in Italy, became the capital and resi- 
dence of Maximian ; while Nicomedia, in Asia Minor, became 
the seat of the court of Diocletian. The Augusti took charge 
of the countries near their respective capitals, while the younger 
and more active Caesars were assigned the government of the 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST. 387 

more distant and turbulent provinces. The vigorous adminis- 
tration of the government in every quarter of the empire was 
thus secured. The authority of each of the rulers was su- 
preme within the territory allotted him ; but all acknowledged 
Diocletian as "the father and head of the state." 

The most serious drawback to the system of government 
thus instituted was the heavy expense incident to the mainte- 
nance of four courts with their trains of officers and dependants. 
The subjects of the empire had reason to complain of the same 
grievances that in more recent times led the American colonists 
to indict the government of their mother-country — the sending 
among them of " swarms of officers to harass the people and 
eat out their substance." The taxes became unendurable, 
husbandry ceased, and large masses of the population were 
reduced almost to starvation. 

While the changes made in the government have rendered 
the name of Diocletian famous in the political history of the 
Roman state, the cruel persecutions which he ordered against 
the Christians have made his name in an equal degree in- 
famous in ecclesiastical annals ; for it was during this reign that 
the tenth — the last and severest — of the persecutions of the 
Church took place. By an imperial decree the churches of the 
Christians were ordered to be torn down, and they themselves 
were outlawed. For ten years the fugitives were hunted in 
forest and cave. The victims were burned, were cast to the 
wild beasts in the amphitheatre — were put to death by every 
torture and in every mode that ingenious cruelty could devise. 
But nothing could shake the constancy of their faith. They 
courted the death that secured them, as they firmly believed, 
immediate entrance upon an existence of unending happiness. 
The exhibition of devotion and constancy shown by the martyrs 
won multitudes to the persecuted faith. 

It was during this and the various other persecutions that 
vexed the Church in the second and third centuries that the 
Christians sought refuge in the Catacombs, those vast subter- 



388 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

ranean galleries and chambers under the city of Rome formed 
by the mining of building material — the soft volcanic tufa used 
in making the famous Roman cement. Here the Christians 
lived and buried their dead, and on the walls of the chambers 
sketched rude symbols of their hope and faith. It was in the 
darkness of these subterranean abodes that Christian art had 
its beginnings. 

Upon the twentieth anniversary of his investiture with the 
royal purple, Diocletian celebrated a triumph at Rome in honor 
of his victories and his prosperous reign. Soon after, wearied 
with the cares of state, he abdicated the throne, and forced or 
induced his colleague Maximian also to lay down his authority 
on the same day. Galerius and Constantius were, by this act, 
advanced to the purple and made Augusti; and two new asso- 
ciates were appointed as Caesars. Diocletian, having enjoyed 
the extreme satisfaction of seeing the imperial authority quietly 
and successfully transmitted by his system without the dictation 
of the insolent praetorians or the interference of the turbulent 
legionaries, now retired to his country-seat at Salona, on the 
eastern shore of the Adriatic, and there devoted himself to 
rural pursuits. It is related that, when Maximian wrote him 
urging him to endeavor, with him, to regain the power they had 
laid aside, he replied : " Were you but to come to Salona and 
see the vegetables which I raise in my garden with my own 
hands, you would no longer talk to me of empire." 

Reign of Constantine the Great (a.d. 306-337). — Galerius 
and Constantius had reigned together only one year, when the 
latter died at York, in Britain ; and his soldiers, disregarding 
the rule of succession as determined by the system of Diocle- 
tian, proclaimed his son Constantine emperor. Six compet- 
itors for the throne arose in different quarters. For eighteen 
years Constantine fought to gain supremacy. At the end of 
that time every rival was crushed, and he was the sole ruler of 
the Roman world. 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST. 3S9 

Constantine was the first Christian emperor. He was con- 
verted to the new religion — such is the legend — by seeing in 
the heavens, during one of his campaigns against his rivals, 
a luminous cross with this inscription: "With this you will 
conquer." He made the cross the royal standard ; and the 
Roman legions now for the first time marched beneath the 
emblem of Christianity. 

By the famous decree issued from Milan a.d. 313, Christian- 
ity was made in effect the state religion; but all other forms 
of worship were tolerated. With the view of harmonizing the 
different sects that had sprung up among the Christians, and 
to settle the controversy between the Arians and Athanasians 
respecting the nature of Christ — the former denied his equality 
with God the Father — Constantine called the first CEcumenical 
or General Council of the Church, at Nicaea, a town of Asia 
Minor, a.d. 325. Arianism was denounced, and a formula of 
Christian faith adopted, which is known as the Nicene Creed. 

After the recognition of Christianity, the most important act 
of Constantine was the selection of Byzantium, on the Bosporus, 
as the new capital of the empire. One reason which led the 
emperor to choose this site in preference to Rome was the un- 
gracious conduct towards him of the inhabitants of the latter 
city, because he had abandoned the worship of the old national 
deities. But there were political reasons for such a change. 
Through the eastern conquests of Rome the centre of the popu- 
lation, wealth, and culture of the empire had shifted eastward. 
The West — Gaul, Britain, Spain — was rude and barbarous ; the 
East — Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor — was the abode of ancient 
civilizations from which Rome was proud to trace her origin. 
Constantine was not the first to entertain the idea of seeking in 
the East a new centre for the Roman world. The Italians were 
inflamed against the first Cagsar by the report that he intended 
to restore Ilium, the cradle of the Roman race, and make that 
the capital of the empire. 

Constantine laid out the new city on an imperial scale. He 



390 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

adorned the spot with many public buildings of great magnifi- 
cence, and encouraged the members of his numerous court to 
erect about these their palatial residences. The splendid ca- 
thedral which he built, and consecrated to Sophia, the " Eter- 
nal Wisdom," was one of the most imposing architectural 
monuments to be found in all the Roman world. Constantine 
organized a new Senate, while that at Rome sank to the ob- 
scure position of the council of a provincial municipality. 
Multitudes eagerly thronged to the new capital, and almost 
in a night the little colony of Byzantium grew into an impe- 
rial city. In honor of the emperor its name was changed 
to Constantinople, the "City of Constantine." Hereafter the 
eyes of the world were directed towards the Bosporus instead 
of the Tiber. 

The character of Constantine has been greatly eulogized by 
Christian writers, while pagan historians very naturally painted 
it in dark colors. It is probable that he embraced Christianity, 
not entirely from conviction, but through political policy. If 
so, events certainly justified his forecast. It was the enthusi- 
asm of his Christian legions, wrought to an intense fervor by 
the sight of the new emblem, that gave to Constantine his vic- 
tory over his last rival on the field of Adrianople. 

Yet Constantine's religion was, in any event, a strange mixt- 
ure of the old and the new faith : on his medals the Christian 
cross is held by the pagan deity Victory. In his domestic re- 
lations he was tyrannical and cruel. He put to death his son 
Crispus fpr no better reason, it is believed, than that he was 
jealous of his rising fame ; his wife he ordered to be smothered 
in the bath; he killed his sister, and drove his mother to death 
with grief and despair. He died in the thirty-first year of his 
reign, leaving his kingdom to his three sons, Constans, Con- 
stantius, and Constantine. 

Reign of Julian the Apostate (a.d. 361-363). — The parcel- 
ling out of the empire by Constantine among his sons led to 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST. 39 1 

strifes and wars, which, at the end of sixteen years, left Con- 
stantius master of the whole. He reigned as sole emperor for 
twenty-four years, engaged in ceaseless warfare with German 
tribes in the West and with the Persians* in the East. The 
management of the war along the Rhenish line he intrusted 
to his cousin Julian, while he himself conducted the war upon 
the Mesopotamian frontier. Becoming jealous of the growing 
reputation of his subordinate, the emperor ordered Julian to 
send a large detachment of his troops to the East. The legions, 
unwilling to leave their beloved leader, proclaimed him em- 
peror, and demanded to be led against Constantius. Julian, 
acceding (not unwillingly, we may believe) to the clamor of 
his soldiers, placed himself at their head, and moved directly 
across Europe to Constantinople. Meanwhile, Constantius was 
advancing through Asia Minor to meet him ; but at Tarsus he 
was taken sick and died, and the impending disaster of civil 
war was thus averted. Julian was everywhere gladly recog- 
nized as emperor (a.d. 361). 

He now crossed the Bosporus, traversed Asia Minor, floated 
his army down the Euphrates, and led them into the mountains 
of Persia, where he fell fatally wounded while pressing in pur- 
suit of the troops of Sapor, King of the Persians (a.d. 363). 

Julian is called the Apostate because he abandoned Chris- 
tianity and labored to restore the pagan faith. His brother 
had been murdered by Constantine, and Julian was naturally 
repelled from the religion which that sovereign so unworthily 
represented. He was a philosopher by taste and genius, and 
was familiar with the teachings of the different schools of 
Greece and Rome. He was an able writer and a formidable 
antagonist in debate. He set himself to the task of uprooting 

* The great Parthian Empire, which had been such a formidable antago- 
nist of Rome, was, after an existence of five centuries, overthrown (a.d. 226) 
by a revolt of the Persians, and the New Persian or Sassanian monarchy 
established. This empire lasted till the country was overrun by the Sara- 
cens in the seventh century a.d. 



392 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

the new religion. Not, however, by devoting the Christians 
" to the sword, the fire, and the lions ;" for, under the soften- 
ing influences of the very faith he sought to extirpate, the 
Roman world had learned a gentleness and humanity that 
rendered impossible the renewal of the old Neronian and Dio- 
cletian persecutions. Julian's weapons were sophistry and rid- 
icule, in the use of which he was a master. To degrade the 
Christians, and place them at a disadvantage in controversy, 
he excluded them from the schools of logic and rhetoric. 

Furthermore, to cast discredit upon the predictions of the 
Scriptures, Julian determined to rebuild the Temple at Jeru- 
salem, which, the Christians contended, could not be restored 
because of the prophecies against it. He actually began ex- 
cavations, but his workmen were driven in great panic from the 
spot by terrific explosions and bursts of flame. The Christians 
regarded the occurrence as miraculous ; and Julian himself, it 
is certain, was so dismayed by it that he desisted from the 
undertaking.* 

It was in vain that the apostate emperor labored to uproot 
the new faith; for the purity of its teachings, the universal and 
eternal character of its moral precepts, had given it a name to 
live. Equally in vain were his efforts to restore the worship 
of the old Grecian and Roman divinities. Polytheism was a 
transitional form of religious belief which the world had now 
outgrown — Great Pan was dead. 

Reign of Jovian (a.d. 363-4). — Jovian, the successor of Juli- 
an, need only be mentioned in order to connect his name with 
the humiliating treaty which he concluded with Sapor, in which 

* The explosions which so terrified the workmen of Julian are supposed 
to have been caused by accumulations of gases — similar to those that so 
frequently occasion accidents in mines. In the subterranean chambers be- 
neath the Temple foundations, the operations of the laborers liberating 
these gases and commingling them with the outer air would account for the 
phenomenon. 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST. 393 

he surrendered to the Persians almost everything beyond the 
Euphrates. He removed the disabilities under which Julian 
had placed the Christians, and re-established their worship. 
Jovian died while on his way from Syria to Constantinople, 
having worn the purple only seven months. 

Valentinian and Valens. — A few days after the death of Jo- 
vian, Valentinian, the commander of the imperial guard, was 
elected emperor by a council of the generals of the army and 
the ministers of the court. When he was presented to the 
soldiers, they tumultuously ratified the choice of their officers. 
But they also proceeded, with great clamor, to urge the new 
emperor to appoint at once a colleague to share with him the 
government. After securing silence, he addressed the soldiers 
as follows : " The weight of the universe is undoubtedly too 
great for the hands of a feeble mortal. I am conscious of the 
limits of my abilities and the uncertainties of life ; and, far 
from declining, I am anxious to solicit, the assistance of a 
worthy colleague. But, where discord may be fatal, the choice 
of a faithful friend requires mature and serious deliberation. 
That deliberation shall be my care. Let your conduct be dig- 
nified and consistent. Retire to your quarters; refresh your 
minds and bodies ; and expect the accustomed donative on 
the accession of a new emperor." 

The result of the deliberations of Valentinian was the ap- 
pointment, at the end of a month, of his brother Valens as his 
associate in office. To him he assigned the Eastern provinces, 
while reserving for himself the Western. He set up his own 
court at Milan, while his brother established his residence at 
Constantinople. 

The Movements of the Barbarians.— The reigns of Valen- 
tinian and Valens were signalized by threatening movements 
of the barbarian tribes that now, almost at the same moment, 
began to press with redoubled energy against all the barriers 

18 



394 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

of the empire. The Alemanni crossed the Rhine — sometimes 
swarming over the river on the winter's ice — and, before pur- 
suit could be made, escaped with their booty into the depths 
of the German forests. The Saxons, pirates of the northern 
seas, who issued from the mouth of the Elbe, ravaged the coasts 
of Gaul and Britain, even pushing their light skiffs far up the 
rivers and creeks of those countries, and carrying spoils from 
the inland cities. In Britain, the Picts and Scots broke through 
the Wall of Antoninus, and wrested almost the entire island 
from the hands of the Romans. In Africa, the Moorish and 
other tribes, issuing from the ravines of the Atlas Mountains 
and swarming from the deserts of the south, threatened to 
obliterate the last trace of Roman civilization occupying the 
narrow belt of fertile territory skirting the sea. 

The barbarian tide of invasion seemed thus on the point of 
overwhelming the empire in the West. For twelve years did 
Valentinian struggle, with temporary success, to resist the fear- 
ful inundation. He hurled the German tribes back into their 
native woods and morasses, and then strengthened the defences 
of the frontier. The hither bank of the Rhine fairly bristled 
with castles and towers. His able lieutenant Theodosius 
(father of Theodosius the Great) delivered the Britons from 
the fierce Caledonians, and drove the intruders back beyond 
the northern wall. He also, by a naval victory over the Saxons, 
gained in the northern seas, checked for a time their insolent 
depredations. In Africa he suppressed the Moorish revolt, 
and restored the authority of the Roman name. 

Besides defending his own territories in the West with such 
signal ability and energy, Valentinian aided, with arms and 
counsel, his weaker brother Valens in the East. He died in 
the twelfth year of his reign, while leading an expedition against 
the Quadi, who had provoked his anger by a raid across the 
Upper Danube. The immediate cause of his death was the 
bursting of a blood-vessel in a fit of anger, to which he gave 
way in the presence of some barbarian ambassadors. Gratian, 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST. 395 

the son of Valentinian, succeeded to his authority in the West 
(a.d. 375)- 

The Goths Cross the Danube.— The year following the death 
of Valentinian, an event of the greatest importance transpired 
in the East. The Visigoths (Western Goths) dwelling north 
of the Lower Danube, who had often in hostile bands crossed 
that river to war against the Roman emperors, now appeared 
as suppliants in vast multitudes upon its banks. They said 
that a terrible race, whom they were powerless to withstand, 
had invaded their territories, and spared neither their homes 
nor their lives. They begged permission of the Romans to 
cross the river and settle in Thrace, and promised, should this 
request be granted, ever to remain the grateful and firm allies 
of the Roman state. 

Valens consented to grant their petition on condition that 
they should surrender their arms, give up their children as 
hostages, and all be baptized in the Christian faith. Their 
terror and despair led them to assent to these conditions. So 
the entire nation, numbering one million souls — counting men, 
women, and children — were allowed to cross the river. Several 
days and nights were consumed in the transport of the vast 
multitudes. The writers of the times liken the passage to that 
of the Hellespont by the hosts of Xerxes. 

The enemy that had so terrified the Goths were the Huns, a 
monstrous race of fierce nomadic horsemen, that two centuries 
and more before the Christian era -were roving the deserts 
north of the Great Wall of China,* which immense rampart 

* This Great Wall is the most stupendous work of defence ever executed 
by man. Its construction was begun in the year 214 B.C. by the Chinese 
emperor Che-Hwang-to. It is about 1500 miles in length, with a varying 
height of from 15 to 30 feet, and is wide enough to allow six horsemen to 
ride upon it abreast. In places the defence is simply an earthen rampart, 
and then again it has a substantial base of solid stone masonry. Towers 
40 teet high are scattered along the wall at different intervals. 



396 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

had been built to protect the Chinese territory from their sud- 
den incursions. Uprooted and driven from that region, they 
moved slowly to the west, across the great steppes of Central 
Asia, and, after wandering several centuries, appeared in Eu- 
rope. They belonged to a different race (the Turanian) from 
all the other European tribes with which we have been so far 
concerned. Their features were hideous, their noses being 
flattened, and their cheeks gashed, to render their appearance 
more frightful, as well as to prevent the growth of a beard. 
The barbarous Goths might well, as they did, call them "Bar- 
barians." 

Scarcely had the fugitive Visigoths been received within 
the limits of the empire before their kinsmen the Ostrogoths 
(Eastern Goths), also driven from their homes by the same ter- 
rible Huns, crowded to the banks of the Danube, and pleaded 
that they might be allowed, as their countrymen had been, to 
place the river between themselves and their dreaded enemies. 
But Valens, becoming alarmed at the presence of so many bar- 
barians within his dominions, refused their request ; whereupon 
they, dreading the fierce and implacable foe behind more than 
the wrath of the Roman emperor in front, crossed the river 
with arms in their hands. 

It now came to light that the cupidity of the Roman officials 
had prevented the carrying-out of the stipulations of the agree- 
ment between the emperor and the Visigoths respecting the 
relinquishment of their arms. The barbarians had bribed 
those intrusted with the duty of transporting them across the 
river, and purchased the privilege of retaining their weapons. 
The persons, too, detailed to provide the multitude with food 
till they could be assigned lands traded on the hunger of their 
wards, and doled out the vilest provisions at the most extor- 
tionate prices. (We seem here to be listening to a recital of 
the unscrupulous conduct of Indian agents on our own fron- 
tiers.) 

As was natural, the injured nation rose in indignant revolt. 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST. 397 

Joining their kinsmen that were just now forcing the passage 
of the Danube, they commenced, under the lead of the great 
Fritigern, to overrun and ravage the Danubian provinces. Va- 
lens despatched swift messengers to Gratian in the West, ask- 
ing for assistance against the foe he had so unfortunately 
admitted within the limits of the empire. Meanwhile, he ral- 
lied all his forces, and, without awaiting the arrival of the 
Western legions, risked a battle with the barbarians near Adri- 
anople. The Roman army was almost annihilated. Valens him- 
self, being wounded, sought refuge in the cabin of a peasant ; 
but the building was fired by the savages, and the emperor 
was burned alive (a.d. 378). The Goths now rapidly over- 
ran Thrace, Macedon, and Thessaly, ravaging the country to 
the very walls of Constantinople. 

Theodosius the Great (a.d. 379-395).— Gratian was hurrying 
to the help of his colleague Valens, when news was brought to 
him of the terrible disaster of Adrianople. Lacking confi- 
dence in his ability to manage alone the affairs of the belea- 
guered empire, he at once appointed as his associate Theodo- 
sius, surnamed afterwards the Great, and intrusted him with 
the government of the Eastern provinces. Theodosius, by wise 
and vigorous measures, quickly reduced the Goths to submis- 
sion. Vast multitudes of the Visigoths were settled upon the 
waste lands of Thrace, while the Ostrogoths were scattered in 
various colonies in different regions of Asia Minor. The Goths 
became allies of the Emperor of the East, and more than 40,000 
of these warlike barbarians, who were destined to be the sub- 
verted of the empire, were enlisted in the imperial legions. 

While Theodosius was thus composing the East, the West, 
through the jealous rivalries of different competitors for the 
control of the government, had fallen into great disorder, and 
the imperial purple, after the murder of Gratian, was worn by 
three aspirants in quick succession. Theodosius twice inter- 
fered to compose affairs, and finally, in a.d. 394, defeated Eu- 



398 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

genius, who had usurped the throne, and then for four months 
ruled as sole monarch of the empire. 

Final Division of the Empire (a.d. 395). — The Roman world 
was now united for the last time under a single master. Just 
before his death, Theodosius divided the empire between his 
two sons, Arcadius and Honorius, assigning the former, who 
was only eighteen years of age, the government of the East, and 
giving the latter, a mere child of eleven, the sovereignty of the 
West. This was the final partition of the Roman Empire — the 
issue of that growing tendency which we have observed in its 
immoderately extended dominions to break apart. The sepa- 
rate histories of the East and the West now begin. 

The Eastern Empire. — The story of the fortunes of the Em- 
pire of the East need not detain us long at this point of our 
history. This monarchy lasted almost exactly one full millen- 
nium — from the accession to power of Arcadius, a.d. 395, to the 
capture of Constantinople by the Turks, a.d. 1453. It will 
thus be seen that the greater part of its history belongs to the 
mediaeval period. Up to the time of the overthrow of the 
Western Empire, the sovereigns of the East were engaged al- 
most incessantly in suppressing uprisings of their Gothic allies 
or mercenaries, or in repelling invasions of the Huns and Van- 
dals. Frequently during this period, in order to save their 
own territories, the Eastern emperors, by dishonorable induce- 
ments, persuaded the barbarians to direct their ravaging expe- 
ditions against the provinces of the West. 



Last Days of the Empire of the West. 

First Invasion of Italy by Alaric. — Only a few years had 
elapsed after the death of the great Theodosius, before the 
barbarians were trooping in vast hordes through all the regions 
of the West. First, from Thrace and Mcesia came the Goths, 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST. 399 

led by the great Alaric. They poured through the Pass of 
Thermopylae, and devastated almost the entire peninsula of 
Greece ; but, being driven from that country by Stilicho, the 
renowned general of Honorius, they crossed the Julian Alps, 
and spread terror throughout all Italy. Stilicho followed the 
barbarians cautiously, and, attacking them at a favorable mo- 
ment, inflicted a terrible and double defeat upon them at Pol- 
lentia and Verona (a.d. 403), and captured their camp, which 
he found filled with the spoils of Thebes, Corinth, and Sparta. 
Gathering the remnants of his shattered army, Alaric forced 
his way with difficulty through the defiles of the Alps, and es- 
caped. 

Last Triumph at Rome (a.d. 404).— A terrible danger had 
been averted. All Italy burst forth in expressions of gratitude 
and joy. The days of the Cimbri and Teutones were recalled, 
and the name of Stilicho was pronounced with that of Marius. 
A magnificent triumph at Rome celebrated the victory and the 
deliverance. The youthful Honorius a»d his faithful general 
Stilicho rode side by side in the imperial chariot. It was the 
last triumph that Rome ever saw. For the last time the car 
of the conqueror was drawn over the Sacred Way. Three 
hundred times — such is asserted to be the number — the Impe- 
rial City had witnessed the triumphal procession of her victori- 
ous generals, celebrating conquests in all quarters of the world. 

Last Gladiatorial Combat of the Amphitheatre. — The same 
year that marks the last military triumph at Rome also signal- 
izes the last gladiatorial combat in the Roman amphitheatre. 
Christian bishops and priests had long been striving to secure 
the abolition of this cruel amusement. This was finally brought 
about by an incident of the games that closed the triumph of 
Honorius. In the midst of the exhibition a Christian monk, 
named Telemachus, descending into the arena, rushed between 
the combatants, but was instantly killed by a shower of stones 



400 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

thrown by the people, who were angered by this interruption 
of their sports. But the people soon repented of their act; 
and Honorius himself, who was present, was moved by the 
scene. Christianity had awakened the conscience and touched 
the heart of Rome. The martyrdom of the monk led to an 
imperial edict "which abolished forever the human sacrifices 
of the amphitheatre." 

Invasion of Italy by the German Tribes. — While Italy was 
celebrating her triumph over the Goths, another and more for- 
midable invasion was preparing in the North. The tribes be- 
yond the Rhine — the Vandals, the Suevi, the Alani, and the 
Burgundians — driven from their seats near the Baltic by some 
unknown cause, poured in impetuous streams from the forests 
and morasses of Germany, and, bursting the barriers of the Alps, 
overspread the devoted plains of Italy. The alarm among the 
Italians was even greater than that inspired by the Gothic in- 
vasion ; for Alaric was a Christian, while Radagaisus, the lead- 
er of the new hordes, was a superstitious savage, who paid 
worship to gods that required the bloody sacrifice of captive 
enemies. 

By such efforts as Rome put forth in the younger and more 
vigorous days of the republic, when Hannibal was at her 
gates, an army was now equipped and placed under the com- 
mand of Stilicho. Meanwhile the barbarians, marking their 
path by the signal of burning towns and villas, had advanced 
as far as Florence, and were now besieging that place. Stili- 
cho here surrounded the vast host — variously estimated from 
200,000 to 400,000 men — and starved them into a surrender. 
Their chief, Radagaisus, was put to death, and great multitudes 
of the barbarians that the sword and famine had spared were 
sold as slaves (a.d. 406). 

The Ransom of Rome (a.d. 409).— Shortly after the victory 
of Stilicho over the German barbarians, he fell under the sus- 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST. 401 

picion of the weak and jealous Honorius, and was executed. 
Thus fell the great general whose sword and counsel had twice 
saved Rome from the barbarians, and who might have again 
averted similar clangers that were now approaching. Listening 
further to the rash counsels of his unworthy advisers, Hono- 
rius, after the murder of his faithful general, caused a general 
massacre of the wives and children of the barbarians who were 
held as hostages in the different cities of Italy. This perfidi- 
ous act provoked to instant revolt the 30,000 Gothic mercena- 
ries in the Roman legions. Their kinsmen beyond the Alps 
joined with them, to avenge the slaughter. Alaric again crossed 
the mountains, and, pillaging the cities in his way, led his hosts 
to the very gates of Rome. Not since the dread Hannibal 
hurled his spear in defiance over the city ramparts — more than 
six hundred years before— had Rome been insulted by the 
presence of a foreign foe beneath her walls. 

The barbarians by their vast number were enabled to com- 
pletely surround the city, and thus cut it off from its supplies 
of food. Famine soon forced the Romans to sue for terms of 
surrender. The ambassadors of the Senate, when they came 
before Alaric, began, in lofty and unbecoming language, to 
warn him not to render the Romans desperate by hard or dis- 
honorable terms : their fury when driven to despair, they rep- 
resented, was terrible, and their number enormous. " The 
thicker the hay, the easier to mow it," was Alaric's derisive re- 
ply. The barbarian chieftain at length named the ransom that 
he would accept and spare the city : "All the gold and silver 
in the city, whether it were the property of individuals or of 
the state ; all the rich and precious movables ; and all the 
slaves that could prove their title to the name of barbarian." 
The amazed commissioners, in deprecating tones, asked, ' If 
such, O king, are your demands, what do you intend to leave 
us?" "Your lives," responded the conqueror. 

The ransom was afterwards considerably modified and re- 
duced. It was fixed at "5000 pounds of gold, 30,000 of silver, 

18* 



402 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

4000 silken robes, 3000 pieces of scarlet cloth, and 3000 pounds 
of pepper." The last-named article was much used in Roman 
cookery, and was very expensive, being imported from India. 
Merivale, in contrasting the condition of Rome at this time 
with her ancient wealth and grandeur, estimates that the gild- 
ing of the roof of the Capitoline temple far exceeded the en- 
tire ransom, and that it was four hundred times less than that 
(five milliards of francs) demanded by the Prussians of Paris, 
in 187 1. Small as it comparatively was, the Romans were 
able to raise it only by the most extraordinary measures. The 
images of the gods were first stripped of their ornaments of 
gold and precious stones, and finally the statues themselves 
were melted down. " Among them," says the pagan writer 
Zosimus, " was one of Courage — of Virtue, as the Romans call 
her j with her disappeared from Rome all that remained of 
honor and valor." 

Sack of Rome by Alaric (a.d. 410). — Upon retiring from 
Rome, Alaric established his camp in Etruria. Here he was 
joined by great numbers of fugitive slaves, and by fresh acces- 
sions of barbarians from beyond the Alps. The Gallic king 
demanded of Honorius, who, with his court, was safe among 
the marshes of Ravenna, lands for his followers between the 
Adriatic and the Danube. He held his sword over Rome and 
threatened its destruction if his demands were not granted. 
Honorius refused to treat ; so Alaric turned upon the capital, 
cut it off from the granaries at Ostia, and thus forced open its 
gates, and then set up Attalus, the prefect of the city, as a 
rival emperor to Honorius. 

Soon afterwards he deposed his puppet-king, and renewed 
his demands of Honorius, who treated all the proposals of the 
barbarian with foolish insolence. Rome now paid the penalty. 
Alaric turned for the third and last time upon the devoted city, 
determined upon its sack and plunder. The treachery of some 
slaves opened to the barbarians the gates of the capital by 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST. 403 

night, "and the inhabitants were awakened by the tremendous 
sound of tne Gothic trumpet." Precisely eight hundred years 
had passed since its sack by Brennus and the Gauls. During 
that time the Imperial City had carried its victorious standards 
over three continents, and had gathered within the temples of 
its gods and the palaces of its nobles the plunder of the world. 
Now it is given over for a spoil to the fierce tribes from beyond 
the Danube. 

Alaric commanded his soldiers to respect the lives of the 
people, and to leave untouched the treasures of the Christian 
temples; but the wealth of the citizens he encouraged them to 
make their own. For six days and nights the rough barbari- 
ans trooped through the streets of the city on their mission of 
pillage. Their wagons were heaped with the costly furniture, 
the rich plate, and the silken garments stripped from the pal- 
aces of the wealthy patricians and the temples of the gods. 
Amidst the license of the sack, the barbarian instincts of the 
robbers broke loose from all restraint, and the city was every- 
where wet with blood, while the nights were lighted with burn- 
ing buildings. 

Effects of the Disaster upon Paganism.— The overwhelming 
disaster that had befallen the Imperial City produced a pro- 
found impression upon both Pagans and Christians throughout 
the Roman world. The former asserted that these unutterable 
calamities had fallen upon the Roman state because of the 
abandonment by the people of the worship of the gods of their 
forefathers, under whose protection and favor Rome had be- 
come the mistress of the world. The Christians, on the other 
hand, saw in the fall of the Eternal City the fulfilment of the 
prophecies against the Babylon of the Apocalypse. The lat- 
ter interpretation of the appalling calamity gained credit amidst 
the panic and despair of the times. The temples of the once 
popular deities were deserted by their worshippers, who had 
lost faith in gods that could neither save themselves nor pro- 



404 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

tect their shrines from spoliation. " Henceforth," says Meri- 
vale, "the power of paganism was entirely broken, and the 
indications which occasionally meet us of its continued exist- 
ence are rare and trifling. Christianity stepped into its de- 
serted inheritance. The Christians occupied the temples, 
transforming them into churches." 

The Death of Alaric. — After withdrawing his warriors from 
Rome, Alaric led them southward. As they moved slowly on, 
they piled still higher the wagons of their long trains with the 
rich spoils of the cities and villas of Campania and other prov- 
inces of Southern Italy. In the villas of the Roman nobles 
the rough barbarians spread rare banquets from the stores of 
their well-filled cellars, and drank from jewelled cups the famed 
Falernian wine. 

Alaric led his soldiers to the extreme southern point of 
Italy, intending to cross the Strait of Messina into Sicily, and, 
after subduing that island, to carry his conquests into the prov- 
inces of Africa. His designs were frustrated by his death, 
which occurred a.d. 412. With religious care his followers se- 
cured the body of their hero against violation by his enemies. 
The little river Busentinus, in Northern Bruttium, was turned 
from its course with great labor, and in the bed of the stream 
was constructed a tomb, in which was placed the body of the 
king, with his jewels and trophies. The river was then restored 
to its old channel, and, that the exact spot might never be 
known, the prisoners who had been forced^to do the work were 
all put to death. 

The Barbarians Seize the Western Provinces.— We must now 
turn our eyes from Rome and Italy to observe the movement 
of events in the provinces. In his efforts to defend Italy, Stil- 
icho had withdrawn the last legion from Britain, and had drained 
the camps and fortresses of Gaul. The Wall of Antoninus was 
left unmanned ; the passages of the Rhine were left unguarded \ 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST. 405 

and the agitated multitudes of barbarians beyond these de- 
fences were free to pour their innumerable hosts into all the 
fair provinces of the empire. Hordes of Suevi, Alani, Vandals, 
and Burgundians overspread all the plains and valleys of Gaul. 
The number of these intruders was swollen by the Goths, who, 
with Italy pillaged, recrossed the Alps, and, turning westward, 
established their camps in the south of Gaul and the north of 
Spain, and set up in those regions what is known as the King- 
dom of the Visigoths. The Vandals pushed on into the south 
of the peninsula, and there occupied a large tract of country, 
which, in its present name of Andalusia, preserves the mem- 
ory of its barbarian settlers. From these regions they crossed 
the Strait of Gibraltar, overran the Roman provinces of North- 
ern Africa, captured Carthage (a.d. 439), and made that city 
the seat of the dread Empire of the Vandals. 

In Britain, upon the withdrawal of the Roman legions, the 
Picts and Scots, breaking over the Wall of Antoninus, descended 
upon and pillaged the cities of the south, which had grown rich 
through trade carried on under the protection of the Roman 
governors. The half-Romanized and effeminate provincials — 
no match for their hardy kinsmen who had never bowed their 
necks to the yoke of Rome — were driven to despair by the rav- 
ages of their relentless enemies, and, in their helplessness, in- 
vited to their aid the Angles and Saxons from the shores of 
the Baltic. These peoples came in their rude skiffs, drove back 
the invaders, and, being pleased with the soil and climate of 
the island, took possession of the country for themselves, and 
became the ancestors of the English people. 

Invasion of the Huns: Battle of Chalons. — The barbarians 
that were thus overrunning and parcelling out the inheritance 
of the dying empire were now, in turn, pressed upon and terri- 
fied by a foe more hideous and dreadful in their eyes than were 
they in the sight of the peoples among whom they had thrust 
themselves. 



406 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

We have already caught a glimpse of the non-Aryan Huns, 
the monstrous Scythians, as they drove the panic-stricken 
Goths across the Danube. Since that time these Scythic war- 
riors had built up an immense barbarian empire stretching 
from the Volga in the east to the Rhine in the west, and from 
the Baltic on the north to the Euxine on the south. Their 
kingdom embraced Turanian Huns, Tartars, and Finns, and 
Aryan Slaves, Goths, and Teutons. They were far more ruth- 
less and implacable than the Gothic and Germanic barbarians 
whose footsteps they were following. Their path was marked 
everywhere by naming signals. Their king disdained to live 
in a palace. At this time the leader of the nation was Attila, 
who declared himself to be a Descendant of the Great Nimrod, 
by the Grace of God King of the Huns, the Goths, the Danes, 
and the Medes, the Dread of the World. The affrighted in- 
habitants of Europe called him in terror the "Scourge of God." 
It was declared that the grass never grew again where once the 
hoof of Attila's horse had trod. 

Attila defeated the armies of the Eastern emperor, and ex- 
acted tribute from the court of Constantinople. The celerity 
of his movements was marvellous. Almost at the same moment 
he was attacking the tribes in Northern Europe, chastising the 
Tartars in Central Asia, and ravaging the fields of Thrace and 
Illyricum. Finally he turned westward, and, at the head of a 
host numbering, it is asserted, 700,000 warriors, crossed the 
Rhine into Gaul, purposing first to ravage that province, and 
then to traverse Italy with fire and sword, in order to destroy 
the last vestige of the Roman power. 

The Romans and their Gothic conquerors laid aside their 
animosities, and made common cause against the common en- 
emy. The Visigoths were rallied by their king, Theodoric; the 
Italians, the Franks, the Burgundians flocked to the standard 
of the Roman general ^Etius. Attila drew up his mighty hosts 
upon the plain of Chalons, in the north of France, and there 
awaited the onset of the Romans and their allies. The con- 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST. 407 

flict was long and terrible. Theodoric was slain ; but at last 
fortune turned against the barbarians. The loss of the Huns 
is variously estimated at from 100,000 to 300,000 warriors. 
Attila succeeded in escaping from the field, and retreated with 
his shattered hosts across the Rhine (a.d. 451). 

This great victory is placed among the significant events of 
history ; for it decided that the Christian Germanic races, and 
not the pagan Scythic Huns, should inherit the dominions of 
the expiring Roman Empire, and control the destinies of Eu- 
rope. 

The Death of Attila.— The year after his defeat at Chalons, 
Attila again crossed the Rhine with a large army, and, passing 
the Alps, burned or plundered all the important cities of North- 
ern Italy. The Veneti fled for safety to the morasses at the 
head of the Adriatic (a.d. 452). Upon the islets where they 
built their rude dwellings, there grew up in time the city of 
Venice, the " eldest daughter of the Roman Empire," the " Car- 
thage of the Middle Ages." 

The conqueror threatened Rome ; but Leo the Great, bishop 
of the capital, went with an embassy to the camp of Attila, and 
pleaded for the city. He recalled to the mind of Attila the fact 
that death had overtaken the impious Alaric soon after he had 
given the Imperial City to be sacked, and warned him not to 
call down upon himself the like judgment of Heaven. To these 
admonitions of the Christian bishop was added the persuasion 
of a golden bribe from the Emperor Valentinian ; and Attila 
was induced to spare Southern Italy, and to lead his warriors 
back beyond the Alps. Shortly after he had crossed the Dan- 
ube, he died suddenly in his camp. His vast kingdom fell 
speedily to pieces after his death ; and the Huns gradually 
withdrew from Europe into the wilds of their native Scythia, 
or were absorbed by the nations they had conquered.* 

* There is much uncertainty respecting the part which the warriors of 



408 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Sack of Rome by the Vandals (a.d. 455). — Rome had been 
saved a visitation from the spoiler of the North, but a new de- 
struction was about to burst upon it by way of the sea from the 
South. Africa sends out another enemy whose greed for plun- 
der proves more fatal to Rome than the eternal hate of Han- 
nibal. The kings of the Vandal Empire in Northern Africa 
had acquired as perfect a supremacy in the Western Mediter- 
ranean as Carthage ever enjoyed in the days of her commercial 
pride. Vandal corsairs swept the seas and harassed the coasts 
of Sicily and Italy, and even plundered the maritime towns of 
the Eastern provinces. In the year 455 a Vandal fleet, led 
by the dread Genseric, sailed up the Tiber. 

These barbarians had been exhorted to come by the Ro- 
man empress Eudoxia, to avenge the murder of her husband 
Valentinian, struck clown by a senator named Maximus, who 
had assumed the purple, and forced the widowed queen to ac- 
cept the hand stained with the blood of her own husband. 

Panic seized the people ; for the name of Vandal was pro- 
nounced with terror throughout the world. Maximus — the 
Achan who had brought this judgment upon the city — was 
stoned to death by an infuriated mob. Again the great Leo, 
who had once before saved his flock from the fury of an Attila, 
went forth, and hastened to throw himself before the "semi- 
Christian Genseric," and to intercede in the name of Christ for 

Attila may have taken in the formation of the later Hungarian state in Eu- 
rope. That appears to have owed its origin to another invading band of 
the same people, that entered Europe several centuries later. " It is at least 
certain," says Creasy, " that the Magyars of Arpad, who are the immediate 
ancestors of the bulk of the modern Hungarians, and who conquered the 
country which bears the name of Hungary in a.d. 889, were of the same stock 
of mankind as the Huns of Attila, if they did not belong to the same sub- 
division of that stock. Nor is there any improbability in the tradition that 
after Attila's death many of his warriors remained in Hungary, and that 
their descendants afterwards joined the Huns of Arpad in their career of 
conquest. It is certain that Attila made Hungary the seat of his empire."— ■ 
Creasy's " Decisive Battles," p. 157. 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST. 409 

the Imperial City. Genseric yielded to the pious bishop the 
lives of the citizens, but said that the plunder of the capital 
belonged to his warriors. For fourteen days and nights the 
city was given over to the ruthless barbarians. The ships of 
the Vandals, which almost hid with their number the waters 
of the Tiber, were piled, as had been the wagons of the Goths 
before them, with the rich and weighty spoils of the capital. 
Palaces were stripped of their ornaments and furniture, and 
the walls of the temples denuded of their statues and of the 
trophies of a hundred Roman victories. From the Capitoline 
sanctuary were borne off the golden candlestick and other 
sacred articles that Titus had stolen from the Temple at Jeru- 
salem. Even the roof of the building was stripped of its gilded 
tiles. 

Finally, the greed of the barbarians was sated, and they were 
ready to withdraw. The Vandal fleet set sail for Carthage* 
bearing, besides the plunder of the city, more than 30,000 of 
the inhabitants as slaves. Conflagration and slaughter had 
also accompanied the work of pillage. Carthage, through her 
own barbarian conquerors, was at last avenged upon her hated 
rival. The mournful presentiment of Cato had fallen true. 
The cruel fate of Carthage might have been read again in the 
pillaged and smoking city that the Vandals left behind them. 

Fall of the Roman Empire of the West (a.d. 476).— Only the 
shadow of the Western Empire now remained. All the prov- 
inces — Illyricum, Gaul, Britain, Spain, and Africa — were in the 
hands of the Goths, the Vandals, the Franks, the Burgundians, 
the Angles, and the Saxons, and various other intruding tribes. 

* A storm overtaking the fleet, the vessel that bore the treasures taken 
from the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus was lost. Not any others suffered. 
"The golden candlestick reached the African capital, was recovered a cen- 
tury later, and lodged in Constantinople by Justinian, and by him replaced, 
from superstitious motives, in Jerusalem. From that time its history is 
lost." — Merivale. 



4IO ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Italy, as well as Rome herself, had become again and again 
the spoil of the insatiable barbarians. The story of the twenty- 
five years following the sack of the capital by Genseric affords 
only a repetition of the events we have been narrating. Dur- 
ing these years several puppet emperors were set up by the 
different leaders of the invading tribes. A final seditious 
movement placed upon the shadow-throne a child of six years, 
son of Orestes, the leading spirit of the new revolution. 

By what has been called a freak of fortune, this boy-sover- 
eign bore the name of Romulus Augustus, thus uniting in the 
name of the last Roman Emperor of the West the names of the 
founder of Rome and of the establisher of the empire. Not 
so much on account of his youth as from contempt excited by 
the imperial farce he was forced to play, this emperor became 
known as Augustulus — "the little Augustus." He reigned only 
one year, when Odoacer, the leader of the Heruli — a small but 
formidable German tribe, all of whom claimed royal descent — 
having demanded one third of the lands of Italy, to divide 
among his followers for services rendered the empire, and hav- 
ing been refused, put Orestes to death, and dethroned the 
child-emperor. His life was spared, and his friends were per- 
mitted to take him into retirement at the villa of Lucullus, in 
Campania. 

Odoacer abolished the title of emperor and styled himself 
King of Italy. The Roman Senate sent an embassy to Con- 
stantinople, with the royal vestments and the insignia of the 
imperial office, to represent to the Emperor Zeno that the West 
was willing to give up its claims to an emperor of its own, and 
to request that the German chief, with the title of" Patrician," 
might rule Italy as his viceroy. This was granted; and Italy 
now became in' effect a province of the Empire of the East 
(a.d. 476). The Roman Empire in the West had come to an 
end, after an existence from the founding of Rome of 1229 
years. 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST. 41 1 



ROMAN EMPERORS FROM COMMODUS TO AUGUSTULUS. 
(a.d. 180-476.) 



A.D. 

Commodus 1S0-192 

Pertinax 193 

Uidius Julianus 193 

Septimius Severus 193-21 1 

( Caracalla 211-217 

( Geta 211-212 

Macrinus 217-218 

Elagabalus 218-222 

Alexander Sever us 222-238" 

Maximin 238 

Gordian 238-244 

Philip 244-249 

Decius 249-251 

Period of the Thirty Tyrants. 251-268 

Claudius 268-270 

Aurelian 270-275 

Tacitus 275-276 

Probus 276-282 

Carus 282-2S3 

Carinus 283-284 

Numerian 283-284 



Diocletian 284-305 

Maximian 286-305 

Constantius 1 305-306 

Galerius 305-31 1 

Constantine the Great 306-337 

Reigns as sole ruler 3 2 3~337 

Constantine II 337~340 

Constans 1 337-35° 

Constantius II 337~ 3^1 

Reigns as sole ruler 350-361 

Julian the Apostate 361-363 

Jovian 363-364 

Valentinian 1 364-375 

Valens (in the East) 364-378 

Gratian 375-3§3 

Maximus 383-388 

Valentinian II 388-392 

Eugenius 39 2 ~394 

Theodosius the Great 379~395 

Reigns as sole emperor. . 394-395 



FINAL PARTITION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, a.d. 395. 



EMPERORS OF THE EASTERN 

EMPIRE. 

(From a.d. 395 to Fall of Rome.) 

A.D. 

Arcadius 395-408 

Theodosius II 408-450 

Marcian 450-457 

Leo 1 457-474 

Zeno 474-491 



EMPERORS OF THE WESTERN 
EMPIRE. 

A.D. 

Honorius 395~4 2 3 

Valentinian III 425-455 

Maximus /,ff.4.$$ 

Avitus 455-456 

Count Ricimer creates and 

deposes emperors 456-472 

Romulus Augustulus 475-476 



412 ANCIENT HISTORY. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. 

Introductory. — We propose in the present chapter to say 
something further respecting the great architectural works of 
the ancient Romans, any extended description of which before 
this time would have broken the continuity of our narrative. 
An examination of these as they stood before time and violence 
laid defacing hands upon them, and as they are now after the 
decay and spoliation of many centuries, will tend to render 
more real, and to impress more deeply upon our minds, the 
story we have been following. In connection with the circus 
and amphitheatre, we shall introduce a few paragraphs upon 
the public games and shows of the Romans. 

Greek Origin of Roman Architecture. — The architecture of 
the Romans was in the main an imitation of Greek models. 
All of the three orders which were originated, or rather per- 
fected, by the Greeks — the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian 
— were employed by the Roman artists. The Doric and the 
Ionic both suffered deterioration in the hands of the Italian 
builders. The harmonious proportions and the graceful sweep 
of lines upon which the Grecian artists depended were neg- 
lected, while the same effects were sought to be secured by 
massiveness of structure and profuseness of ornamentation. 
But the Romans were not mere borrowers or servile imitators. 
In their structures was introduced a principle of which the 
Greek architects seldom made use, but which the Roman 
builders employed so constantly and so prominently as to 
render it the characterizing feature of Roman architecture. 



ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. 



413 



We refer, of course, to the arch, which was known to both 
the Egyptians and the Chaldaeans, as well as to the Greeks, 
long before the foundations of Rome were laid, but the pos- 
sibilities of which it was reserved for the practical Romans 
to discover and utilize. By means of it they spanned the 
broadest streams with bridges that have resisted all the assaults 
of time and flood until the present day, carried stupendous 
aqueducts across the deepest valleys, and vaulted the roofs of 
the largest buildings. 

In the very brief examination that we shall make of Roman 
architecture, we shall notice, first, the sacred edifices — the tem- 
ples; second, those structures designed for the exhibition of 
games and shows — the circus, the theatre, and the amphithea- 
tre; third, works of utility — the military roads, aqueducts, and 
baths ; fourth, the villas of the wealthy ; and, lastly, memorial 
architecture— triumphal arches and columns, and monuments 
for the dead. 

Roman Temples. — The most celebrated of the sacred edifices 
of the Romans was the Capitoline Temple, or Capitol, as often 
called, which crowned the summit of one of the Seven Hills — 
the Capitoline — so that it overlooked at once the Tiber and the 
Forum. The building, with its courts and porticos, covered 
an area of eight acres, a space much greater than the original 
level summit of the hill, which was therefore enlarged by im- 
mense substructions and fillings, as in the case of the founda- 
tions of the Temple at Jerusalem. The structure is said to 
have been commenced by Tarquinius Priscus, 615 B.C.; but it 
was not completed until the reign of Tarquinius Superbus, 
about one hundred years later. The temple proper, which 
was about two hundred feet square, contained three chambers, 
the central and largest being sacred to Jupiter, while those on 
either side were consecrated one to Juno and the other to 
Minerva. The sanctuary was reached from the Forum by a 
magnificent flight of one hundred marble steps. At the close 



414 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

of the Punic wars the entire roof of the central portion of the 
building was covered with gilded tiles at an almost fabulous 
expense — $20,000,000 according to some authorities. The 
brazen doors of the temple were also adorned with solid plates 
of gold. The interior decorations were of marble and silver. 
The walls were crowded with the rich trophies hung up by 
successful commanders as memorials of their own prowess and 
the favor of the gods. 

The fortunes of the famous sanctuary were even more 
varied than those of the Delphic shrine. Three times it was 
burned and as often rebuilt. The original structure stood 
four hundred and thirteen years, when it was accidentally de- 
stroyed by fire during the civil war of Marius and Sulla (84 
B.C.). It was restored by Sulla, but was again burned during 
the conflict between the soldiers of Vespasian and Vitellius 
(a.d. 69). Vespasian rebuilt it, but again fire consumed it dur- 
ing the reien of Titus. Domitian restored it for the third and 
last time with great magnificence. We have already learned 
the fate of the treasures of the sanctuary at the hands of the 
barbarian Goths and Vandals, when the Roman arms had be- 
come too weak to defend what they had wrested from a hun- 
dred nations. 

The Capitoline was to Rome what the Acropolis was to 
Athens. It became the home of art and the centre of the 
religious life and worship of the nation. Besides the Capitol 
many other richly decorated temples were erected upon the 
levelled summit of the hill. There were sanctuarfes dedi- 
cated to Venus, Fortune, Mars, Juno Moneta, and the adopted 
Egyptian deities Isis and Serapis. But although this Roman 
Acropolis was primarily set apart for the service of the gods, 
it was not given up entirely to sacred uses. It was the reposi- 
tory of the treasures of the state, as well as of its religious 
relics. Thus adjoining the Temple of Juno Moneta was the 
Roman mint, from which circumstance stamped coin came to 
be called moneta; hence our word money. In the Capitol 



ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. 4T5 

was an important library, chambers for the records of the state, 
vaults for the Sibylline Books, lecture-rooms, and offices for the 
use of the city magistrates. And hither ascended, by the clivus 
capitolinus, the fortunate conqueror, to return thanks to Jupiter 
for victory, and to enrich his shrine with the spoils of war. 

The fury of barbarian conquerors, and the vandalism of the 
Middle Ages — during which period the material of the ancient 
temples was appropriated for building purposes — succeeded 
in obliterating almost the last trace of building upon the hill. 
The site of the Temple of Jupiter is now occupied by the Capi- 
tol of modern Rome. 

After the Capitoline Temple, the Pantheon is the next sacred 
edifice of the Romans most worthy of our attention, both be- 
cause of its peculiar architecture and of the wonderful state of 
preservation in which it has reached our own time. It is a 
vast circular structure 188 feet in diameter, with walls 19 feet 
thick — made thus thick and strong in order to bear the im- 
mense stone dome which springs its tremendous arch over the 
building. This is one of the boldest pieces of masonry exe- 
cuted by the master builders of the world. At the top of the 
dome is an opening about thirty feet in diameter, designed to 
light the building, so that every ray that enters the sanctuary 
falls directly from the heavens. The temple is fronted by a 
splendid portico, forming a thick grove of columns, through 
which entrance is given to the shrine. The doors were of 
bronze, and still remain in place. 

The Pantheon was built about 25 B.C. by the consul M. 
Agrippa, son-in-law of Augustus. It was consecrated to Jupi- 
ter the Avenger. The name Pantheon * was given the build- 
ing, not because it contained statues of all the gods, for there 
were niches for only six besides that of Jupiter, but from the 
great dome being conceived to represent the heavens, the 
divine dwelling-place (Guhl). The statues of the ancient dei- 

* From two Greek words, pan, all, and thcion, divine. 



416 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

ties have disappeared from the niches of the shrine, and they 
are now filled with the figures of Christian saints ; and the 
sanctuary has been renamed, being now known as the Church 
of All the Saints. 

There were a large number of circular vaulted temples in 
Rome. This was a style of architecture peculiarly Italian. 
There were no such structures to be found among the 
Greeks, if we except a few small and unimportant buildings, 
mostly of a subterranean character. 

It was not the capital alone that was adorned with sacred 
edifices. The chief cities of Italy and of all the provinces 
were filled with temples rivalling in richness and magnificence 
those at the centre of the empire. Many of these were con- 
structed by the magistrates of Rome, or by the emperors, in 
order to gain the good - will of the citizens of the places 
thus patronized. Nothing more excites our surprise, or tends 
more to impress the imagination with a sense of the opulence 
and wide-spread power of the Roman state during its best days, 
than the fact that a city so remote from Italy as Palmyra, 
situated in the midst of a great desert, exposed to the attacks 
of the most formidable enemies, should have been adorned with 
architectural structures second only to those of the capital it- 
self. The Palmyrian Temple of the Sun was, next after the 
Capitoline sanctuary, the most magnificent shrine within the 
limits of the empire. Kept from decay by the dry preserva- 
tive air of the desert, and secured from the spoliation of mod- 
ern builders by its isolation, this desert fane is to-day the 
most perfectly preserved of the great sacred edifices of the 
ancient Romans. 

The Circus. — The circuses of the Romans were what we 
should call race-courses. There were several at Rome, the 
most celebrated being the Circus Maximus, which was located 
in the valley between the Palatine and the Aventine. It was 
first laid out by Tarquinius Priscus. During succeeding cen- 



ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. 417 

turies it was enlarged as the population of the capital increased, 
until finally, at the time of Constantine, which emperor made 
the last extension, it was capable of holding probably two or 
three hundred thousand spectators.* It was oblong in shape, 
being about 1800 feet long and 600 feet wide. From the 
course, or track, the seats rose in tiers the same as in a thea- 
tre. From the uppermost row of seats rose high buildings 
with several stories of balconies like the boxes overhanging the 
modern stage. The sloping sides of the valley were taken 
advantage of in the formation of the seats. The only remain- 
ing trace of this stupendous structure is the terraced appear- 
ance of the low encircling hills. 

The Games of the Circus. — The circensian games had a re- 
ligious origin. The belief that the gods delighted in the 
exhibition of feats of skill, strength, or endurance ; that their 
anger might be appeased by such spectacles; or that they 
might be persuaded by the promise of games to lend aid to 
mortals in^reat emergencies, was what led to the institution 
of the shows of the circus. At the opening of the year it was 
customary for the Roman magistrate, in behalf of the people, 
to promise to the gods games and festivals, provided good 
crops, protection from pestilence, and victory were granted the 
Romans during the year. So, too, a general in great straits in 
the field might, in the name of the state, vow plays to the gods, 
and the people were sacredly bound by his act to fulfil the 
promise. Plays given in fulfilment of vows thus made were 
called votive games. To these were added many others to 
commemorate important events, or to signalize the completion 
of some important work. Towards the close of the republic 
they lost much of their religious character, and at last became 
degraded into mere brutal shows given by ambitious leaders 
for the purpose of winning popularity. 

* Authorities differ, ranging from 150,000 to 380,000. Pliny says 250,000. 

19 



418 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

The games consisted at first of chariot-racing, wrestling, foot- 
racing, and various athletic sports. Then dramatic represen- 
tations were added, and finally the gladiatorial combats ; but 
the circus was ill adapted to these, and after a time theatres 
were constructed for the exhibitions of the drama, and the am- 
phitheatre for the combats of men and animals. After the sup- 
pression of the gladiatorial shows by the Christian emperors, 
the circensian games were the principal entertainments left to 
the people. They retained their popularity down to the over- 
throw of the empire. 

Theatres. — The Romans borrowed the plan of their theatres 
from the Greeks. The form was that of a semicircle with ris- 
ing tiers of seats. The Greeks, in the construction of their 
theatres, usually took advantage of some hill-side. The first 
theatre was simply the gentle slope of a curving valley, where 
the rising ground formed the seats for the spectators, and the 
level space at the bottom of the hill the stage for the players. 
Those who desired better seats than the turf afrorded were 
obliged to carry mats or chairs with them. Soon permanent 
seats were constructed, the native rock being not unfrequently 
hewn into steps to serve this purpose. This was the case at 
the Greek city of Syracuse, where the rock-theatre, still very 
perfectly preserved, forms almost the only relic of that ill-fated 
city. Sometimes only the lower portion of the structure was 
cut in the hill, while the upper part was constructed of wood. 

When the Romans, who usually seemed to scorn the idea of 
saving labor, or of asking nature to lend aid in any work, felt 
the need of some structure better adapted than the circus to 
dramatic representations, and set themselves to theatre-build- 
ing, they erected the entire structure upon level ground, raising 
a great supporting wall or framework in place of the hill with 
its favoring slopes. All of the theatres built at Rome previous 
to the year 55 b.c. were of wood. In that year Pompey the 
Great returned from his campaigns in the East, where he had 



ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. 419 

seen the Greek theatre at Mitylene, and immediately set to 
work to erect, in imitation of it, a stone theatre at Rome that 
should seat 40,000 spectators. (This structure and two others, 
one built by Augustus and the other by Cornelius Balbus,were 
the only theatres at the capital.) Around the top of the cavea 
ran a covered portico, beneath which the audience might retreat 
in case of storm. 

Of the theatrical entertainments themselves we shall speak 
in the following chapter, in connection with the literature of 
the Romans. We need here simply observe that the plays with 
which the Romans were entertained were, in the main, transla- 
tions or very close imitations of Greek dramas. Comedy was 
more popular than tragedy : the people saw too much real 
tragedy in the exhibitions of the amphitheatre to care much 
for the make-believe tragedies of the stage. 

The Amphitheatre. — The first amphitheatre seems to have 
been the outgrowth of the rivalry between Pompey and Caesar. 
The liberality of the former in the erection of his stone the- 
atre had so won for him the affections of the people that the 
latter saw he must do something to surpass his rival, or see 
himself entirely distanced in the race for popular favor. Caesar 
was at this time away in Gaul, whence he sent immense sums of 
money, gained by his successful wars, to his friend Curio, then 
tribune at Rome, who was enjoined to erect, with the means 
thus put in his hands, a structure that should cast Pompey's 
into the shade. Pliny tells us that Curio built two wooden 
theatres side by side, in which two distinct audiences might be 
entertained at the same time. With things thus arranged, and 
with the people in good-humor from the farcical representations 
that had been given, all was ready for the master-stroke that 
was to win the applause of the fickle multitude. At a given 
signal, one of the theatres, which had been constructed so as 
to admit of such a movement, was swung around and brought 
face to face with the other, in such a way as to form a vast am- 



420 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

phitheatre, where, from a central space called the arena and 
designed for the exhibitions, the seats rose in receding tiers on 
every side. 

The first stone amphitheatre was erected during the reign of 
Augustus. But the one that pushed all other edifices of this 
kind far into the background, and in some respects surpassed 
any other monument ever reared by man, was the structure 
commenced by Flavius Vespasian, and often called, after him, 
the Flavian Amphitheatre, but better known as the Colosseum, 
either, as we have said elsewhere, on account of its enormous 
size, or from a colossus of Nero which stood in front of it. 
The edifice was 574 feet in its greatest diameter, and was capa- 
ble of seating 87,000 spectators. The encircling wall rose in 
four stories to the height of 156 feet. The several stories ex- 
hibited exteriorly the different orders of Grecian architecture : 
the lower story was Doric, the second Ionic, and the third and 
fourth were Corinthian. Within, the seats rose from the arena 
in receding tiers to the magnificent portico that crowned the 
upper circle. The lower front seats were reserved for the 
imperial family, the senators, and the magistrates of Rome. 
The first twenty seats back of these were for the knights, the 
next sixteen for the citizens, and the uppermost for the women. 
At either end of the longer diameter the unprivileged masses 
found place to stand or sit. Beneath the arena and seats 
were large chambers designed as dens for the wild animals 
needed in the shows. Sockets in the upper stone-work held 
pillars to which were fastened the ropes by means of which an 
immense awning was stretched over the heads of the specta- 
tors to keep out the sun and rain. Fountain jets filled the air 
with perfumed spray ; pieces of statuary, placed at advanta- 
geous points, relieved the monotony of the endless circle of 
seats; and bright-colored silken decorations lent a festive 
appearance to the vast auditorium. 

The enormous proportions of the Colosseum have enabled 
it to resist all the, agencies of destruction which have been at 



ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. 42 I 

work upon it through so many centuries. The crowning colon- 
nade was destroyed by fire; the immense walls were quarried 
by the builders of Rome for a thousand years, and from them 
was taken material for the building of a multitude of castles, 
towers, and palaces, erected in the capital during the Middle 
Ages ; and for seventeen hundred years the tooth of time has 
been busy upon every part of the gigantic structure. Yet, not- 
withstanding all these concurring agencies of ruin, the Colos- 
seum still stands grand and impressive as at first, even more 
impressive because of these marks that it bears of violence and 
of time. It rises before us as " the embodiment of the power and 
splendor of the empire." The Venerable Bede of England, 
writing in the early part of the eighth century, tells us of the 
impression produced by the stupendous edifice upon the sim- 
ple pilgrims from the then rude North. He quotes the follow- 
ing saying, current among these visitors: "As long as the Col- 
osseum stands, Rome shall stand; when the Colosseum falls, 
Rome will fall ; when Rome falls, the world will fall." * 

Many of the most important cities of Italy and of the prov- 
inces were provided with amphitheatres, similar in all essential 
respects to the Colosseum at the capital, only much inferior in 
size, save the one at Capua, which was nearly as large as the 
Flavian structure. 

The Shows of the Amphitheatre. — Before the erection of am- 
phitheatral buildings, the shows that came to be exhibited in 
them were performed, as we have already mentioned, in the 
circus or forum, which, however, were ill adapted to such 
presentations. The shows that were transferred from these 
places to the amphitheatre were animal-baitings and gladia- 
torial combats. 

The beasts required for the baitings were secured in differ- 
ent parts of the world, and transported to Rome and the other 

* Milman's Gibbon's " Rome," vol. vi. p. 533. 



42 2 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

cities of the empire at an enormous expense. The wildernesses 
of Northern Europe furnished bears and wolves; Africa con- 
tributed lions, crocodiles, and leopards; Asia elephants and ti- 
gers. These creatures were pitted against one another in every 
conceivable way. Often a promiscuous multitude would be 
turned loose in the arena at once. But even the terrific scene 
that then ensued, as the frightened and enraged beasts flew at 
one another in wild and aimless encounter, became at last too 
tame to stir the blood of the Roman populace. Hence a new 
species of show was introduced, and grew rapidly into favor 
with the spectators of the amphitheatre. This was the glad- 
iatorial combat. 

The Gladiatorial Combats. — Gladiatorial games seem to have 
had their origin in Etruria, whence they were brought to Rome. 
It was a custom among the early Etruscans to slay prisoners 
over the warrior's grave, it being thought that the spirit of the 
dead delighted in the blood of such victims. In time the con- 
demned prisoners were allowed to fight and kill one another, 
this being deemed more humane than their cold-blooded slaugh- 
ter. Thus it happened that sentiments of humanity gave rise 
to an institution which, afterwards perverted, became the most 
inhuman of any that ever existed among a civilized people. 

The first gladiatorial spectacle at Rome was presented by 
Marcus and Decimus Brutus, as the closing part of the funeral 
ceremonies of their father, in the year 264 B.C. This exhibition 
was arranged in one of the forums, as there were at that time 
no amphitheatres in existence. From this time the public taste 
for this species of entertainment grew rapidly, and by the be- 
ginning of the imperial period had mounted into a perfect pas- 
sion. It was now no longer the manes of the dead, but the 
spirits of the living, that they were intended to appease. At first 
the combatants were slaves, captives, or condemned criminals ; 
but at last knights, senators, and even women descended into 
the arena. Training-schools were established at Rome, Capua, 



GLADIATORIAL COMBATS. 423 

Ravenna, and other cities. Free citizens often sold themselves 
to the keepers of these seminaries ; and to them flocked des- 
perate men of all classes, and ruined spendthrifts of the no- 
blest patrician houses. Slaves and criminals were encouraged 
to become proficient in this art by the promise of freedom if 
they survived the combats beyond a certain number of years. 

Sometimes the gladiators fought in pairs ; again great com- 
panies engaged at once in the deadly fray. They fought in 
chariots, on horseback, on foot — in all the ways that soldiers 
were accustomed to fight in actual battle. The contestants 
were armed with lances, swords, daggers, tridents, and every 
manner of weapon. Some were provided with nets and las- 
sos, with which they entangled their adversaries, and then slew 
them. 

The life of a wounded gladiator was in the hands of the au- 
dience. If in response to his appeal for mercy, which was 
made by outstretching the forefinger, the spectators reached 
out their open hands, or waved their handkerchiefs, that indi- 
cated that his prayer had been heard ; but if they extended 
clenched fists, that was the signal for the victor to complete 
his work upon his wounded foe. Sometimes the dying were 
aroused and forced on to the fight by burning with a hot iron. 
The dead bodies were dragged from the arena with hooks, like 
the carcasses of animals, and the pools of blood soaked up 
with dry sand. 

These shows increased to such an extent that they entirely 
overshadowed the entertainments of the circus and the theatre. 
Ambitious officials and commanders arranged such spectacles 
in order to curry favor with the masses; magistrates were ex- 
pected to give them in connection with the public festivals ; 
the head of aspiring families exhibited them "in order to ac- 
quire social position ;" wealthy citizens prepared them as an 
indispensable feature of a fashionable banquet; the children 
caught the spirit of their elders and imitated them in their 
plays. The demand for gladiators was met by the training- 



424 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

schools; the managers of these hired out bands of trained men, 
that travelled through the country like opera troupes among 
us, and gave exhibitions in private houses or in the provincial 
amphitheatres. 

The rivalries between ambitious leaders during the later 
years of the Republic tended greatly to increase the number 
of gladiatorial shows, as liberality in arranging these spectacles 
was a sure passport to popular favor. It was reserved for the 
emperors, however, to exhibit them on a truly imperial scale. 
Titus, upon the dedication of the Flavian Amphitheatre, pro- 
vided games, mostly gladiatorial combats, that lasted one hun- 
dred days. Trajan celebrated his victories with shows that 
continued still longer, in the progress of which 10,000 gladia- 
tors fought upon the arena, and more than that number of 
wild beasts were slain. Claudius eclipsed all his predecessors 
by the naval battle he exhibited on the Fucine Lake, a.d. 52, 
in celebration of the completion of some engineering works in 
that place, in which spectacle 19,000 gladiators were engaged, 
and fought as in a regular sea-fight. 

Suppression of the Gladiatorial Games. — The suppression of 
the gladiatorial games has been declared to be the most im- 
portant reform in the moral history of the world.* There is 
certainly no other moral achievement that may be compared 
with it unless it be the abolition of slavery throughout the 
civilized world, which grand reform the present century has 
seen accomplished. And it is to Christianity that the credit 
of the suppression of the inhuman exhibitions of the amphi- 
theatre is entirely, or almost entirely, due. The pagan philoso- 
phers usually regarded them with indifference, often with favor. 
Thus Pliny commends a friend for giving a gladiatorial enter- 
tainment at the funeral of his wife. And when the pngan 
moralists do condemn the spectacles, it is rather for other rea- 

* Lecky's " History of European Morals," vol. ii. p. 34. 



ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. 



425 



sons than that they regarded them as inhuman and absolutely 
contrary to the rules of ethics. They were defended on the 
ground that they fostered a martial spirit among the people 
and inured the soldier to the sights of the battle-field. Hence 
gladiatorial games were actually exhibited to the legions before 
they set out on their campaigns. Indeed, all classes appear to 
have viewed the matter in much the same light, and with ex- 
actly the same absence of moral disapprobation, as we our- 
selves regard the slaughter of animals for food. Augustus, it 
is true, ordered that not more than one hundred and twenty 
gladiators should fight together, and prohibited magistrates 
from giving more than a stated number of exhibitions during 
the year ; but these measures aimed at checking extravagance 
rather than inculcating humanity. But the Christian fathers 
denounced the combats as absolutely immoral, sinful, and sac- 
rilegious. They labored in every possible way to create a 
public opinion against them. The members of their own body 
who attended the spectacles were excommunicated. At last, 
in a.d. 325, the first imperial edict against them was issued by 
Constantine. This decree appears to have been very little re- 
garded ; nevertheless, from this time forward the exhibitions 
were under something of a ban, until the edict of Honorius 
(a.d. 404) effectually suppressed the inhuman spectacles. 1 * 
Even before this decree they had come to an end in the East, 
where they never, especially in Greece, had been received with 
such favor as in the West. The inane bull-fight exhibited at 
the present day in Spanish countries is the last remaining relic 
of the sanguinary human combats of the Roman amphitheatre. 

Military Roads. — Foremost among the works of utility exe- 
cuted by the Romans, and the most expressive of the spirit of 
the people, were their military roads. Radiating from the capi- 
tal, they grew with the growing empire, until all the countries 



* See above, p. 399. 
19* 



426 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

about the Mediterranean and beyond the Alps were united to 
Rome and to one another by a perfect network of highways 
of such admirable construction that even now, in their ruined 
state, they excite the wonder of modern engineers. 

The most noted of all the Roman roads was the Via Appia, 
called by the ancients themselves the " Queen of Roads," 
which ran from Rome to Capua. It was built by Appius 
Claudius (312 bc), for whom it was named. Afterwards it 
was continued in a southeasterly direction, and carried across 
the peninsula to Brundisium, an important sea-port on the 
coast of Apulia, whence expeditions were embarked for opera- 
tions in the East. The Flaminian Way ran from the capital 
to Ariminum on the Adriatic, and thence was extended, under 
another name, northward into the Valley of the Po. Several 
other roads, reaching out from Rome in different directions, 
completed the communication of the capital with the various 
cities and states of the peninsula. As the limits of the Roman 
authority extended, new roads were built in the conquered 
provinces — in Sicily, in Northern Africa, in Spain, over the 
Alps, along the Rhine and the Danube, throughout Gaul, Brit- 
ain, Greece, and all the East. 

These military roads, with characteristic Roman energy and 
disregard of obstacles, were carried forward, as nearly as pos- 
sible, in straight lines and on a level, mountains being pierced 
with tunnels, and valleys crossed by massive viaducts. Near 
Naples may be seen one of these old tunnels still in use, called 
the Grotto of the Posilippo, which is over half a mile in length. 
It led the old Appian Way through a hill that at this point 
crossed its course. The usual width of the roadway was about 
thirteen feet ; the bed was formed of broken stone and cement, 
upon which was sometimes laid, as in the case of the Via Ap- 
pia, a regular pavement formed of large blocks of the hardest 
stone. Foot-paths often ran along the sides of the main road- 
way ; mile-posts told the distance from the capital ; and upon 
the best-appointed roads were found seats disposed at proper 



ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. 427 

intervals for the convenience of travellers. In the Forum at 
Rome was a gilded post, the ideal centre of the empire, and so 
of course of the world, from which distances on all the radiat- 
ing roads were measured. 

Aqueducts. — To supply a great city with abundant and 
wholesome water is a matter of no less difficulty than impor- 
tance. All the great capitals of the world, ancient and modern, 
have secured this boon only by the most lavish expenditure of 
labor and money. The kings of Babylon expended immense 
labor in the distribution of water through the gardens and resi- 
dences of their capital. Solomon's greatest work after the 
Temple was the cutting of reservoirs (still existing as Solo- 
mon's Pools) for the collecting of water, and the construction 
of conduits to lead the same, from a distance of several miles, 
within the walls of Jerusalem. But the aqueducts of ancient 
Rome were the most stupendous constructions of this nature 
ever executed by the inhabitants of any city. That capital was 
better supplied with water than any other great city of ancient 
or modern times. The old writers compare to rivers the 
streams that the aqueducts poured through its streets. 

The water-system of Rome was commenced by Appius 
Claudius (about 313 B.C.), who secured the building of an aque- 
duct which led water into the city from the Sabine hills, through 
a subterranean channel eleven miles in length. From the spoils 
obtained in the war with Pyrrhus was built the Anio Aqueduct, 
so named because it brought water from the Anio River. A 
second aqueduct running from the same stream, and called the 
Anio Nova, to distinguish it from the older conduit, was sixty- 
two Roman miles in length. It ran beneath the ground until 
within about six miles of the city, when it was taken up on 
arches and thus carried over the low levels into the capital. In 
places this aqueduct was held up more than a hundred teet 
above the plain. During the republic four aqueducts were 
completed; under the emperors the number was increased to 
nineteen. Of all these only four are now in use. 



428 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

The Romans carried their aqueducts across depressions and 
valleys on high arches of masonry, not because they were igno- 
rant of the principle that water seeks a level, but for the reason 
that they found this method of construction more economical 
in the long-run than the use of pipes. In some instances the 
principle was put in practice, and pipes were laid down one 
side of a valley and up the opposite slope. But their liability 
to accident, as we have intimated, led to the adoption of the 
other method. The lofty arches of the ruined aqueducts that 
run in long broken lines over the plains beyond the walls of 
Rome are described by all visitors to the old capital as the 
most striking feature of the desolate Campagna. 

Thermae, or Baths. — The greatest demand upon the streams 
of waters poured into Rome by the aqueducts was made by 
the Thermae, or baths.* Among the ancient Romans, bathing, 
regarded at first simply as a troublesome necessity, became in 
time a luxurious art. During the Republic, bathing-houses were 
erected in considerable numbers, the use of which could be 
purchased by a small entrance-fee equivalent to about one 
cent of our money. Towards the end of the Republic, when 
bathing had already come to be regarded as a luxury, ambi- 
tious politicians, anxious to gain the favor of the masses, would 
secure a free day for them at the baths. But it was during the 
imperial period that those magnificent structures, to which the 
name of Thermae properly attaches, were erected. Nero, Titus, 
Trajan, Commodus, Caracalla, Decius, Constantine, and Dio- 
cletian all erected splendid thermae, which, as they were in- 
tended to exhibit the liberality of their builders, were thrown 
open to the public free of charge. These edifices were very 

* Vast quantities of water were also absorbed by the fountains, of which 
Rome is said to have had a larger number than any other city of the world 
in any age. M. Agrippa, the builder of the Pantheon, is credited with hav- 
ing set up 105, and his example found many imitators. 



ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. 429 

different affairs from the bathing-houses of the republican era. 
Those raised by the emperors were among the most elaborate 
and expensive of the imperial works. They contained cham- 
bers for cold, tepid, hot, sudatory, and swimming baths ; dress- 
ing-rooms and gymnasia; museums and libraries; covered col- 
onnades for loitering and conversation ; extensive grounds filled 
with statues and traversed by pleasant walks; and every other 
adjunct that could add to the sense of luxury and relaxation. 
The pavements were frequently set with the richest mosaics. 
The Thermae of Diocletian contained over three thousand of 
these stone pictures. Caracalla's Baths had over sixteen hun- 
dred marble seats; granite pillars from Egypt decorated the 
colonnades; green marble panellings, cut in Numidia, lined 
many of the chambers ; the fixtures of the baths were plated, 
and in some of the rooms were of solid silver. Some concep- 
tion of the stupendous size of this structure may be gained 
from the fact that the entrance-hall, or rotunda, of the building 
was almost as large as the celebrated Pantheon, which it re- 
sembled in form. 

It was not the inhabitants of the capital alone that had con- 
verted the business of bathing into a luxury and an art. There 
was no town of any considerable size anywhere within the lim- 
its of the empire that was not provided with its thermae. And 
wherever springs of medicinal qualities broke from the ground 
there arose magnificent baths, and such spots became the fa- 
vorite watering-places of the Romans. Thus Baden-Baden was 
a noted and luxurious resort of the wealthy Romans centuries 
before it became the great summer haunt of the Germans. 
Baiae, near Naples, on account of its warm sulphur springs and 
the beauty of its surroundings, became crowded with the pleas- 
ure-seekers of the capital. These bathing-towns, as was almost 
inevitable, acquired unenviable reputations as hotbeds of vice 
and shameless indulgence. 

All the Roman thermae, after suffering repeated spoliation 
at the hands of successive robbers, have sunk into great heaps 



430 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

of rubbish. Many of their beautiful marbles were carried off 
by different Greek emperors to Constantinople. Charlemagne 
decorated his palace at Aix-la-Chapelle with columns torn from 
these imperial structures, which were then falling into dilapida- 
tion at Rome. The popes built others into St. Peter's Cathe- 
dral. And the masons of Rome, like the brick-hunters of Baby- 
lon and Nineveh, for centuries mined amidst the vast heaps 
of the ruined structures for marble blocks and statues, to be 
burned into lime for making cement. Modern excavations have 
recovered from, the mounds of rubbish some of the most 
famous of the sculptures that are to be found in the museums 
of Europe. 

Palaces and Villas. — The residences of the wealthy Romans 
when built within the city walls were called mansions or pal- 
aces, but when located in the country were usually designated 
as villas. The Palatine was the aristocratic quarter of Rome, 
being occupied by the homes of the wealthy class. After the 
Great Fire, Nero erected here his Golden House, whose various 
buildings, courts, gardens, vineyards, fish-ponds, and other in- 
numerable appendages, spread over much of the burnt district. 
The central building upon the Palatine, shorn of its extensive 
grounds and useless adjuncts, became the residence of most of 
the emperors who held the throne after the death of Nero. 

Among the villas frequently mentioned by the old writers are 
those of Scipio, Metellus, Lucullus, Cicero, Hortensius, Pliny, 
Horace, Virgil, Hadrian, and Diocletian. But to attempt enu- 
meration would be misleading. Every wealthy Roman pos- 
sessed his villa, and many affected to keep up several in differ- 
ent parts of Italy. These country residences, while retaining 
the elegance and all the conveniences of the city palace — baths, 
museums, and libraries — added to these such adjuncts as were 
denied a place by the restricted room of the capital — extensive 
gardens, aviaries, fish-ponds, vineyards, olive -orchards, shaded 
walks, and well-kept drives. 



ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. 43 1 

Perhaps the most noted of Roman villas was that of Hadrian 
at Tibur, now Tivoli. It was intended to be a miniature rep- 
resentation of the world — both the upper and the lower. There 
were theatres, baths, and temples of rare workmanship. In one 
part of the grounds were reproduced the Thessalian Vale of 
Tempe and other celebrated bits of scenery. Subterranean 
labyrinths enabled the visitor to make an ^Enean descent into 
Hell, and a journey amidst the scenes of the dolorous region.* 

Within the ruined enclosure of the villa of Diocletian — the 
emperor who gave up imperial cares to raise vegetables at 
Salona, on the Adriatic — are crowded the buildings of the little 
modern village of Spalatro. 

Triumphal Columns and Arches. — Among all peoples, what- 
ever be their place in the scale of civilization, we find an in- 
stinct or sentiment which prompts them to endeavor to perpet- 
uate the memory of important events in their history by means 
of commemorative monuments. When Jacob, upon the spot 
where he had dreamed, set up a stone for a pillar and poured 
oil upon the top of it, he simply obeyed that universal impulse 
which has given to the world the grand lettered obelisks of the 
Pharaohs, destined, seemingly, to stand so long as the world 
shall endure, and the imposing sculptured columns of the Ro- 
mans, to some of which seems to have been granted the im- 
mortality of the Egyptian monuments. 

The first historic column raised by the Romans was erected 
in the year 261 B.C., to commemorate their first naval victory, 
gained by Duillius over the Carthaginian fleet. It was deco- 
rated with the brazen prows of the broken and captured ships 
of the enemy. Trajan's Column, built to commemorate the Da- 
cian victories of that emperor, is a remarkable work. It is still 
standing in an almost perfect state of preservation. It is over 
one hundred feet in height, and is pictured from base to sum- 

# Guhl and Koner's "Life of the Greeks and Romans," p. 372. 



432 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

mit with representations of battles and various scenes illustra- 
tive of Trajan's Dacian campaigns. 

The triumphal arches were modelled after the city gates, 
being constructed with single and with triple archways. Two 
of the most noted monuments of this character, and the most 
interesting because of their historic connections, are the Arch 
of Titus and the Arch of Constantine, both of which are still 
standing. Upon the former are represented the articles brought 
from Jerusalem by Titus as the spoils of the war against the Jews. 
Among other figures may be seen the seven-branched candle- 
stick taken from the Hebrew Temple. An inscription declares 
that the arch was erected " to the memory of Titus by the Sen- 
ate and the Roman people." The Arch of Constantine was 
intended to commemorate the victory of that emperor over 
Maxentius, which event established Christianity as the imperial 
and favored religion of the empire. 

The Roman Triumph.— The courage of the Roman soldier 
was fostered, and his daring and intrepidity were incited, by 
means of various rewards conferred for acts of special valor. 
Thus the soldier who first scaled the walls of the enemy's cities 
was awarded the golden co7'ona muralis; he who first boarded 
an enemy's vessel was honored with the corona navalis; while 
the commander who, by some deed of unusual daring, had res- 
cued his army from imminent peril, or turned seeming defeat 
into victory, was crowned— provided there were no dissenting 
voice — with the garland of grass, the most honorable crown 
that could be placed upon the head of the warrior. Gold 
chains intended to be worn about the neck, and medals with 
various decorations for the breast, were still further means of 
rewarding distinguished merit. 

But surpassing all other marks of honor was the military tri- 
umph. During the later years of the Republic this signal honor 
was accorded only to the successful general who had killed at 
least 5000 enemies in a single battle. (In the imperial period 



ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. 433 

the emperors arranged their own triumphs, sometimes without 
much regard to the results of their campaigns.) The expenses 
of the ceremonies were borne by the state. All the streets and 
public buildings of Rome were decorated with great splendor 
for the occasion. At one of the gates of the city, called the 
"Gate of Triumph," the fortunate commander was met by the 
magistrates of the capital and bodies of the citizens, who led 
the procession that was now formed. Following this escort 
were the trains of wagons loaded with the heavier spoils of 
war, while slaves carried in their hands the lighter trophies — 
vessels of gold and silver, statues, paintings, and every variety 
of art treasures ; still others bore banners with boastful legends, 
and with representations of battles, sieges, and captured cities 
and fortresses. Next came the captive nobles, princes, and 
kings, often led with golden chains. Following these was the 
triumphal car bearing the conqueror, while the victorious le- 
gions closed the procession. It was not unusual for the tri- 
umph to last several days. The games of the circus, the plays 
of the theatre, and the shows of the amphitheatre formed a fit- 
ting termination to the ceremonies. 

Sepulchral Monuments. — The Romans in the earliest times 
seem to have usually buried their dead; but towards the 
close of the republican period cremation, or burning, became 
common. When Christianity took possession of the empire, the 
doctrine of the resurrection of the dead which it taught caused 
inhumation, or burying, again to become the prevalent mode. 

The favorite burying-place among the Romans was along 
the highways; the Appian Way was lined with sepulchral mon- 
uments for a distance of several miles from the gates of the 
capital. Many of these are still standing. These memorial 
structures were as varied in design as are the monuments in 
our modern cemeteries. Shafts, broken columns, altars, pyra- 
mids, and chapels were oft-recurring forms. 

Two sepulchral edifices of the imperial era deserve special 



434 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

notice. One of these was raised by Augustus as a tomb and 
monument for himself and his successors. It stood close to 
the banks of the Tiber, and consisted of an enormous circular 
tower raised upon a massive square substructure. A century 
later, this sepulchre having become filled, Hadrian constructed 
a similar monument, which was richer, however, in marbles and 
sculptures, upon the opposite bank of the Tiber. This struct- 
ure was called, after the emperor, the Mole or Mausoleum of 
Hadrian. It is now used as a military fortress under the name 
of the Castle of St. Angelo. The massive structure, battered 
by many sieges and assaults and decayed through lapse of 
time, presents, next after the Colosseum, the most imposing 
appearance of any of the decayed monuments of the ancient 
Romans. 



LATIN LITERATURE. 435 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

LATIN LITERATURE. 

Literature among the Romans. — The literary or purely in- 
tellectual life of the Romans was in every way far inferior to 
that of the Greeks. The old conquerors of the world were too 
practical a race — were too much absorbed in the business of 
war and government — to find much time to pay devotion to the 
Muses of Poetry and Art, or to pursue with much earnestness, 
not to say patience, those philosophical speculations which 
were so congenial to the Attic intellect. All the national 
aims and pursuits of this martial race trained their ear to catch 
more music in the tread of legions than in the sweetest ca- 
dences of the poet's verse. Their very amusements tended to 
the same end as did their more serious employments. As we 
have said in another place, the stern, real tragedies of the 
amphitheatre rendered tame the mock tragedies of the stage. 
The inspiration and encouragement of popular appreciation 
and applause, which raised the tragic drama to such lofty ex- 
cellence at Athens, were almost wholly wanting at Rome. 

Therefore, in the brief examination which we now propose to 
make of Latin literature, we must not expect to discover such 
worth and genius as distinguish the intellectual productions 
of the Hellenic race ; still we shall find the literary memorials 
of the Roman people possessing so many eminent qualities 
and so much merit that we shall acknowledge they are justly 
assigned a prominent, though not the foremost, place among 
the literary treasures of the world. 

The Period of Literary Activity. — It was only the last two 



436 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

centuries of the Republic and the first of the Empire — only 
three centuries in all — that were marked by the literary activity 
and productiveness of the Latin intellect. The first five cen- 
turies of Roman history are almost barren of literary monu- 
ments. But in the third century B.C., under the fostering in- 
fluences of the Republic, literature began to spring up and to 
flourish, and by the time of the establishment of the Empire 
had reached its fullest and richest development; then, with the 
fall of the institutions of the republican era, it quickly com- 
menced to languish, and survived the death of freedom barely 
a single century. By the beginning of the second century 
of the Empire, the productive period of Latin literature had 
closed ; and the last four hundred years of the imperial era 
exhibit the name of scarcely a single writer of vigor and origi- 
nality. 

We here learn how depressing and withering are the in- 
fluences of a capricious and irresponsible despotism, which 
forbids all freedom and truthfulness, upon the intellectual and 
literary life of a people. Literature is a plant that thrives best 
in the free air of a republic. It is true, indeed, that some of 
the choicest fruit of the Latin intellect ripened during the 
first years of the Empire ; but this had been long maturing 
under the influences of the republican period, jind should prop- 
erly be credited to that era. Besides, the evil tendencies of 
the unlimited monarchy had not yet manifested themselves 
under Augustus; still, even during the reign of that emperor, 
Ovid, one of the brightest minds of the period, was exiled, 
without any reason being assigned for the act, to the barbarous 
shores of the Euxine. But the conduct of the despot Nero will 
better illustrate what we have affirmed. Every one will recall 
how that tyrant was on the point of burning every copy of 
the "Iliad" and of the "^Eneid," because, in the imperial 
judgment, Homer had no taste, and Virgil was without genius. 
What shall literature do under such censorship? 

There was another cause besides the repressive tenden- 



LATIN LITERATURE. 437 

cies of the imperial government that must not be overlooked 
when we seek the reasons for the quick and early decay of 
Latin literature. It was an exotic; that is, it was a borrowed 
literature, being almost wholly a transplantation from Greece. 
And because it was something introduced from abroad, and 
was not native to the Italian soil, it was necessarily short-lived. 
"The imitative productions of Ennius," says Dunlop, " may be 
likened to those trees which are transplanted when far ad- 
vanced in growth. Much at first appears to have been gained; 
but it is certain that he who sets the seedling is more useful 
than the transplanter, and that, while the trees removed from 
their native soil lose their original beauty and luxuriance with- 
out increase in magnitude, the seedling swells in its parent 
earth to immensity of size — fresh, blooming, and verdant in 
youth, vigorous in maturity, and venerable in old-age."* 

It is only those literatures that are the spontaneous out- 
growth and expression of a people's life and genius that can 
long endure. The writers of one nation or race may, and in- 
deed must, borrow from all others; but there must be suf- 
ficient vitality in the parent stem to send fresh currents 
through the graft and make it a part of the stock into which 
it has been set. The literary spirit among the Romans was 
never strong, virile enough to thoroughly reanimate and trans- 
form that which they appropriated. So, aside from the unfa- 
voring influences of imperialism, Latin literature, because an 
exotic transplanted into an uncongenial soil, seemed predes- 
tined to a short life and an early decay. 

Greek Learning and Latin Literature. — Notwithstanding 
that Latin literature was almost wholly imitative or borrowed, 
the service it performed in the cause of civilization has been 
lasting and eminent. It was the medium for the dissemination 
of the rich literary treasures of Greece throughout the world. 

* Dunlop's " History of Roman Literature," vol. i. p. 99. 



438 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

In order to realize the greatness of its work and influence, 
we must bear in mind that the spread of the Latin tongue 
was coextensive with the conquests of Rome. The subju- 
gated nations, with the laws of their conquerors, received also 
their language. In those countries where the subjected peo- 
ples were inferior in civilization to the Romans, the language 
of the conquerors came into general use. Such was the con- 
dition of all the nations in the West. Italy, Spain, Gaul, and 
Northern Africa became so thoroughly Romanized before the 
overthrow of the empire that the Latin tongue, much corrupted 
of course from the classical forms of the capital, came into uni- 
versal use among all classes. It was somewhat different in 
the East, where the Hellenic language and culture had been 
spread. The speech of Rome never succeeded in crowding 
out the Greek language as it pushed aside and displaced the 
various rude and barbarous dialects of the tribes of Western 
Europe. Yet throughout all the Eastern provinces the Roman 
tongue became the speech of the ruling class, and was under- 
stood and very generally employed by men of education and 
social position. 

We see, then, how very extended was the audience addressed 
by the Roman writers. The works of the Latin poets and his- 
torians were read everywhere within the limits of the Roman 
empire, and that is equivalent to saying that they circulated 
throughout the civilized world. And wherever Latin litera- 
ture found its way there were scattered broadcast the seeds 
of Grecian culture, science, and philosophy. The relation of 
Rome to Greece was exactly the same as that of Phoenicia to 
Egypt, as expressed by Lenormant : Greece was the mother 
of modern civilization ; Rome was its missionary. 

Periods of Latin Literature. — The periods of Roman litera- 
ture may be designated as the Legendary Age, the Era of the 
Drama, the Golden Age, the Silver Age, and the Iron Age. 

The Legendary Age embraces the obscure period, partly 



LATIN LITERATURE. 439 

regal and partly republican, when Rome was under Etruscan 
influence ; the Era of the Drama extends from 240 to 78 B.C., 
the latter date being the year which marks the death of Sulla; 
the Golden Age covers the period lying between the death of 
Sulla and the death of Augustus, a.d. 14 (this epoch is divided 
into the republican period and the Augustan era); the Silver 
Age extends from the close of the Golden Age to the death 
of Hadrian, a.d. 138 ; and the Iron Age embraces the remain- 
ing centuries of the empire. The names of the periods are 
sufficiently expressive, without explanation, of the character 
of the literary productions of the different epochs they severally 
designate. • 

In the short review which we shall now proceed to give of 
the writers of these several periods, we shall speak only of the 
most noted authors — of those whose names have become inter- 
woven with the threads of general history. We shall not even 
mention minor names, as they properly belong to the literary 
student, and do not in any special manner concern the his- 
torian. But the great writers of a nation or race belong as 
much to its history proper as do its great commanders and 
statesmen. 

As we advance in our study we shall not fail to notice that 
the different writers start forth in groups, as though evoked by 
the influences of the respective ages in which they appear. 
Thus we shall see that the Roman dramatists wrote at the 
time when Hellenic influences, through the conquest of the 
cities of Magna Graecia, first became predominant at Rome; 
that the famous orators of Rome lived under the Republic ; 
that the greatest poets flourished just at the beginning of the 
imperial period— under the patronage of an Octavius and a 
Maecenas; and that the most noted of the satirists appeared 
during, or followed closely upon, eras of extravagance and 
corruption. 

Lays and Ballads of the Legendary Age.— The period em- 



440 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

braced between the eighth and fourth centuries B.C. may prop- 
erly be called the Heroic Age of Rome. It corresponds ex- 
actly, in its literary products, to the similarly designated pe- 
riod in Grecian history. During this early age, throughout 
which Etruscan influence was predominant at Rome in all 
matters of art and culture, there sprang up a great number of 
hymns, ballads, or lays, of which the merest fragments survived 
the varying fortunes of the state, and were preserved in the 
works of the later writers of the Republic. These compositions 
appear to have been written for recitation upon public occa- 
sions, at banquets or funerals, to gratify national or family 
pride. So feeble was the historic sense among the Romans 
that these metrical pieces were afterwards mistaken for history, 
and were gravely narrated by Livy and others as the trust- 
worthy annals of early Rome. "The fabulous birth of Romu- 
lus, the rape of the Sabine women, the most poetical combat of 
the Horatii and Curiatii, the pride of Tarquin, the misfortunes 
and death of Lucretia, the establishment of liberty by the el- 
der Brutus, the wonderful war with Porsenna, the steadfastness 
of Scaevola, the banishment of Coriolanus, the war which he 
kindled against his country, the subsequent struggle of his 
feelings, and the final triumph of his patriotism at the all- 
powerful intercession of his mother — these and the like cir- 
cumstances, if they be examined from the proper point of 
view, cannot fail to be considered as relics and fragments 
of the ancient heroic traditions and heroic poems of the Ro- 
mans." * 

These stories must be placed along with the Grecian tales 
of Cadmus and Theseus, of the Argonautic Expedition and the 
Trojan War. They belong to the literary, and not to the his- 
torical, annals of the Roman people. They may be made use 
of for historical purposes, but only in the same way that the 

* Schlegel, in " Lectures on Literature," as quoted by Dunlop in " His- 
tory of Roman Literature," vol. i. p. 41. 



LATIN LITERATURE. 44 1 

poems of Homer are used. The references and aliusions they 
contain throw light upon the manners, customs, and modes of 
thinking of the remote times in which they grew up. The few 
threads of fact that may be drawn from them have been woven 
into the picture which, in a previous chapter, we attempted to 
form of the early Roman state. 

The Roman Dramatists. — From the earliest times Rome was 
under the influence of Grecian civilization, as is shown in the 
matter of the Twelve Tables; but the conquest of the Hellenic 
cities of Southern Italy as the outcome of the war with Pyr- 
rhus, and the acquisition of Sicily as the result of the First 
Punic War, brought the Romans into much closer relations 
than had hitherto existed with the arts and culture of the 
Greeks. The Romans now began to study with much appre- 
ciation, and not without profit, the rich stores of Greek litera- 
ture opened to them. Among the leading families of Rome, it 
became the fashion to commit the education of children to 
Greek poets and scholars. Greek slaves were made tutors and 
taught the Roman youth the language of Athens, often, it would 
seem, to the neglect of their native tongue ; for we hear the 
Censor Cato complaining that the boys of his time spoke 
Greek before they could use their own language. The con- 
queror bows at the feet of the conquered. The vanquished 
triumphs over the victor. The intellectual sway of Athens over 
Rome becomes not less complete and despotic than the politi- 
cal sway of Rome over Athens. The debt incurred by the 
Romans in all intellectual and literary matters to the Greeks 
has been declared to be but faintly paralleled by that incurred 
by the English in theology, philosophy, and music to Germany.* 
"Their [the Romans'] genius, I believe," says Dunlop, "would 
have remained unproductive and cold half a century longer, 
had it not been kindled by contact with a warm, polished, and 

* Cruttwell's " History of Roman Literature," p. 36. 
20 



442 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

animated nation, whose compositions could not be read without 
enthusiasm or imitated without advantage."* 

It was the dramatic productions of the Greeks which were 
first copied and studied at Rome. Translations for the stage, 
particularly those of a comic character, were received with 
great favor, and the theatre became the popular resort of all 
classes. For nearly two centuries, from 240 B.C. to 78 B.C., 
dramatic literature was almost the only form of composition 
cultivated at Rome. During this epoch appeared all the great 
dramatists ever produced by the Latin-speaking race. Of these 
we may name, for brief mention, Livius Andronicus, Naevius, 
Ennius, Plautus, and Terence. All of these writers were close 
imitators of Greek authors, and most of their works were sim- 
ply adaptations or translations of the masterpieces of the 
Greek dramatists. 

Livius Andronicus, probably a Greek prisoner carried to 
Rome from some city of Magna Graecia, who lived about the 
middle of the third century B.C., was the father of the Roman 
drama. He transformed the mimic dances, which had been 
introduced at Rome by Etruscan actors about a century before 
his time (in 364 B.C.), into a real dramatic representation, by 
adding to the performance dialogues to be recited by the act- 
ors. The plays, both tragedies and comedies, with which Liv- 
ius entertained the Romans were, in great part, mere transla- 
tions from the Greek. He seems to have been popular among 
the common people, for the house in which he exhibited his 
plays was upon the Aventine, the quarter of the lower classes, 
as the Palatine was the abode of the aristocracy. He was the 
performer of his own pieces, and was so often recalled by his 
admirers that he overtaxed and lost his voice. After this mis- 
fortune befell him, he employed a boy to declaim those parts 
of the dialogue which required to be rendered in a high tone, 
while he himself played the flute, recited the less declamatory 

* Dunlop's " History of Roman Literature," vol. i. p. 55. 



LATIN LITERATURE. 443 

passages, and accompanied the whole with the proper gesticu- 
lation. This mode of representation, which Livius had been 
constrained to adopt through accident, afterwards became the 
fashion in the Roman theatres ; and the plays were usually 
presented by two persons, one reciting the words and the other 
accompanying them with the appropriate gestures. Time has 
spared to us little more than the titles of Livius's plays, yet 
for more than two centuries his works were extremely popular 
among the Romans, and were studied as text-books by the 
youth of the capital. Even the poets of the Augustan age 
were large debtors to the genius and industry of Livius. 

Naevius, who wrote about the close of the third century B.C., 
was the first native-born Roman poet of eminence. His works 
were translations from various Greek dramatists. He imitated 
Aristophanes ; and as the latter lashed the corrupt politicians 
of Athens, so did the former expose to ridicule and contempt 
different members of the leading patrician families at Rome. 
He did not escape with impunity; for he was once in prison, 
and finally died an exile at Utica or Carthage (about 204 B.C.). 
Nasvius bore part as a soldier in the First Punic War, and he 
found solace during the years of his exile in writing in epic 
verse the events of that stirring time. 

While Naevius was in exile in Africa, there arose at the capi- 
tal another aspirant for literary fame. This was Ennius, who 
called himself the Latin Homer (he was an epic as well as 
dramatic writer), and whom Cicero always referred to as "our 
own Ennius." He was honored too by the ancients with the 
appellation of "the learned Ennius," and by some modern 
critics he has been compared to Shakespeare in the versatility 
and originality of his plays ; for though, like Shakespeare, he 
always borrowed the plots of his plays, taking them from Greek 
sources, still he was not a mere copyist or imitator. He pru- 
dently avoided the course that had brought upon Naevius the 
wrath of the leaders of the capital, and assiduously courted the 
favor of the ruling class. He celebrated the patrician families 



444 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

in heroic verse, and thus gained their patronage. By his teach- 
ings and writings he overcame the prejudice which up to his 
time had existed against the introduction of a foreign literature. 
He even won over to his side Cato, who during the first part 
of his life had bitterly opposed the advocates of Hellenic cult- 
ure. In his later years the stern old Censor became a diligent 
student of Greek. 

The greatest work from the prolific pen of Ennius was the 
" Annals," an epic poem recounting in graceful and vigorous 
verse the story of Rome from the times of the kings to his own 
day. Had Virgil never lived, Ennius must always have been 
named as the greatest epic poet produced by the Roman race; 
and the fragments of his " Annals " which still survive would 
be carefully preserved as the remains of the Roman "Iliad." 
For two centuries, until the advent of the Augustan poets, the 
works of Ennius held almost supreme sway over the Roman 
mind. His verses were constantly rehearsed in the theatres ; 
they were committed to memory by the Roman youth, were 
quoted by the orator, and borrowed by the poet. Virgil ac- 
knowledged Ennius as his master by becoming a diligent stu- 
dent of his works, and by transcribing word for word many of 
his most beautiful passages? " All epic writers have borrowed 
freely from their predecessors, and the chain of epic ideas 
passes back through Milton, Dante, Virgil, Ennius, until it ends 
at last in Homer" (Lawrence). 

Plautus (254-184 b.c.) and Terence (195-161 B.C.) were 
writers of comedy, who won a fame that has not yet perished. 
Plautus adapted various Greek plays to the Roman stage, cor- 
rupting all the pieces he touched with low wit and drollery, in 
order to catch the ear of the lower classes that thronged the 
theatres. His plays reproduced before the inhabitants of the 
capital the corrupt life of the East, whose debasing influences 
were at this time beginning to effect a lowering of the tone of 
society at Rome. Terence wrote more for the cultured classes, 
and did not stoop to employ those means by which Plautus 



LATIN LITERATURE. 445 

secured the applause of his audiences. All of the six comedies 
which Terence wrote were either translations or adaptations 
from the Greek. Tradition records the death of the poet at 
sea while returning from Greece with one hundred and eight 
new plays, translations from the poet Menander. As Plautus 
and Terence borrowed from the Greek stage, so have all mod- 
ern writers of comedy — Italian, French, and English — drawn 
freely from these their great Roman predecessors.* 

Poets of the Later Republican Era. — In the year 146 b.c, 
Corinth in Greece was destroyed, the treasures of its museums 
and the rolls of its libraries were carried to Italy, and Roman 
authority became supreme throughout Greece. The impulse 
that had been given to the study of Greek models by the con- 
quest of Magna Graecia more than one hundred years before 
was now intensified and strengthened. But with the introduc- 
tion of the learning and refinement of the conquered states 
came also the luxuries and vices of the East. Just at this 
time, evoked, it would seem, by the shameless extravagances 
and corruptions that invited rebuke, appeared Lucilius (born 

* " ' The earliest writers,' as has justly been remarked, ' took possession 
of the most striking objects for description, and the most probable occur- 
rences for fiction, and left nothing to those that followed but transcriptions of 
the same events, and new combinations of the same images ' [" Rasselas "]. 
The great author from whom these reflections are quoted had at one time 
actually projected a work to show how small a quantity of invention there 
is in the world, and that the same images and incidents, with little varia- 
tion, have served all the authors who have ever written. Had he prosecuted 
his intention, he would have found the notion he entertained fully confirmed 
by the history both of dramatic and romantic fiction ; he would have per- 
ceived the incapacity of the most active and fertile imagination greatly to 
diversify the common characters and incidents of life, which, on a superfi- 
cial view, one might suppose to be susceptible of infinite combinations ; he 
would have found that, while Plautus and Terence servilely copied from the 
Greek dramatists, even Ariosto scarcely diverged in his comedies from the 
paths of Plautus." — Dunlop's "History of Roman Literature," Preface, 
p. xix. 



44^ ANCIENT HISTORY. 

148 B.C.), one of the greatest of Roman satirists. The later 
satirists of the corrupt imperial era were the imitators of the 
republican poet. 

Besides Lucilius, there appeared during the later republican 
era only two other poets of distinguished merit — Lucretius 
and Catullus. Both were born early in the last century before 
Christ. Lucretius studied at Athens, where he became deeply 
imbued with the doctrines of the Epicurean philosophy, which 
at that time was in the ascendant at the Attic capital. He left 
behind him but a single work, entitled De Rerum Natura — 
"On the Nature of Things." This production is somewhat 
doubtfully asserted to have been written during the lucid in- 
tervals which relieved the frequent fits of melancholy or 
insanity that darkened his life. Lucretius was a thorough evo- 
lutionist, and in his great poem we find anticipated many of 
the conclusions of modern scientists. He pictures Chaos with 
more than Miltonic power; tells how the worlds were formed 
by a "fortuitous concourse of atoms;" relates how the gen- 
erations of life were evolved by the teeming earth ; ridicules 
the superstitions of his countrymen, declaring that the gods do 
not trouble themselves with earthly affairs, but that storms, 
lightning, volcanoes, and pestilences are produced by natural 
causes, and not by the anger of the celestials ; and finally 
reaches the conclusion that death ends all for the human soul. 
Lucretius is studied more by modern scholars, whose discov- 
eries and theories he so marvellously anticipated, than he was 
by the Romans of his own time. 

Catullus was a poet the beauty and sweetness of whose 
verses are winning to their study at the present day many ar- 
dent admirers. He was born 87 B.C., and died at the age of 
about forty. He complains of poverty; yet he kept two villas, 
and found means to indulge in all the expensive and licentious 
pleasures of the capital. He has been called the Roman 
Burns, as well on account of the waywardness of his life as 
from the sweetness of his song. The name of Catullus closes 



LATIN LITERATURE. 447 

the short list of the prominent poets of the republican period 
of the Golden Age. 

Poets of the Augustan Age. — Three names have cast an un- 
fading lustre over the period covered by the reign of Augustus 
— Virgil, Horace, and Ovid. So distinguished have these poets 
rendered the age in which they lived, that any period in a peo- 
ple's literature signalized by exceptional literary taste and re- 
finement is called, in allusion to the Roman era, an Augustan 
Age. After the terrific commotions that marked the decline 
and overthrow of the Republic, the long and firm and peaceful 
reign of Augustus brought welcome relief and rest to the Ro- 
man world, wearied with conquests and with contentions over 
the spoils of war. In narrating the political history of this 
period, we spoke of the effect of the fall of the Republic upon 
the development of Latin literature. Many who, if the republi- 
can institutions had continued, would have been absorbed in 
the affairs of the state were led, by the change of government, 
to seek solace for their disappointed hopes, and employment 
for their enforced leisure, in the graceful labors of elegant com- 
position. Augustus encouraged this disposition, thinking thus 
to turn the thoughts of ambitious minds from broodings over 
the lost cause. By his princely patronage of letters he opened 
a new and worthy field for the efforts and competitions of the 
active and the aspiring. His minister Maecenas, in whose 
veins flowed royal Etruscan blood, vied with his master in the 
bestowal upon friends of munificent rewards, and in the exten- 
sion of a helpful and inspiring patronage to literary merit, and 
thus did much towards creating the enthusiasm for letters that 
distinguishes this period. 

The vastness of the audience they addressed also reacted 
uoon the writers of this era, and encouraged the greatest pains- 
taking in all their productions. Never before had literary men 
sooken to so extended an audience — to so much of the world. 
The boundaries of the Roman Empire now touched everywhere 



448 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

the limits of civilization. And throughout these ample domains 
the Roman language had become more or less universally 
spread. In all the West, as we have seen, in Italy, in Gaul, in 
Spain, in the cities of Northern Africa, it was rapidly supplant- 
ing the barbarous dialects of the conquered tribes ; while 
throughout all the provinces and cities of the East it was the 
speech of the court, of the aristocracy, of learning. The works 
of Virgil, of Horace, and of Ovid were read and admired in the 
camps of Gaul and in the capitals of Greece and Syria. Po- 
litical tranquillity, elegant leisure, imperial patronage, the in- 
spirations of Greek genius, the encouragement of appreciation 
and wide attention — everything conspired to create an epoch 
in the world of literature. 

And yet we must not look for vigor, strength, originality, 
nervous energy, in the productions of the writers of this period. 
These qualities belong to times of great public excitement j to 
periods of activity, change, revolution ; to those eras that sig- 
nalize the crises and grand struggles of a people's life. They 
mark creative, Shakespearian epochs in literature. Elegance, 
grace, refinement, polish, taste, beauty, are the characteristics 
of the Augustan writers. 

Of the three poets whom we have named as the representa- 
tives of the poetry of the Augustan period, Virgil doubtless 
has been the most widely read and admired. He was born 
70 B.C. in the little village of Andes, not far from Mantua. In 
diligent study at Naples, he formed the acquaintance of the 
master-minds of Grecian literature, and felt the inspirations of 
the past life of Hellas. Upon his farm at Mantua he learned 
to love nature and the freedom of a country life. During the 
disorders of the Second Triumvirate his villa was confiscated, 
along with the whole Mantuan district, and given to friends of 
Octavius and Antony. It was afterwards restored to the poet 
by Augustus. Virgil was laboring upon his greatest work, the 
"^Eneid," when death came to him, in the fifty-second year of 
his age. There is a little memorial building in the suburbs of 



LATIN LITERATURE. 449 

Naples, which is at the present time pointed out to travellers 
as his tomb, and which is declared to have held for several 
centuries the urn containing the ashes of the poet; but it must 
be added that the identification is very doubtful. 

The three great works of Virgil are his " Eclogues," the 
"Georgics," and the "^Eneid." The "Eclogues" are a series 
of pastorals, which are very close imitations of the poems of 
the Sicilian Theocritus. Virgil, however, never borrowed with- 
out adorning that which he appropriated by the inimitable 
touches of his own graceful genius. It is the rare sweetness 
and melody of the versification, and the Arcadian simplicity 
of these pieces, that have won for them such a host of admirers. 

In the poem of the " Georgics " Virgil extols and dignifies 
the husbandman and his labor. This work has been pro- 
nounced the most finished poem in the entire range of Latin 
literature. It was written at the suggestion of Maecenas, who 
hoped by means of the poet's verse to allure his countrymen 
back to that love for the art of husbandry which animated the 
fathers of the early Roman state. Throughout the work Virgil 
follows very closely the " Works and Days " of Hesiod. The 
poet treats of all the labors and cares of the farm — gives 
valuable precepts respecting the keeping of bees and cattle, 
the sowing and tillage of crops, the dressing of vineyards 
and orchards, and embellishes the whole with innumerable 
passages containing beautiful descriptions of natural scenery, 
or inculcating some philosophical truth, or teaching some moral 
lesson. Without the " Georgics " we should never have had 
the " Seasons " of Thomson ; for this work of the English poet 
is in a large measure a direct translation of the verses of Virgil. 

The "^Eneid" stands next to the "Iliad" of Homer as the 
greatest epic poem of all literatures. It tells the story of 
the wanderings of ^Eneas and his companions up and down 
the Mediterranean after the downfall of Troy, his settle- 
ment in Italy, and the struggles of his descendants with the 
native inhabitants of the land. Through ^Eneas, the hero of 

20* 



45 O ANCIENT HISTORY. 

the poem, Virgil doubtless intends to represent and compli- 
ment the character of his patron, Augustus. In this his great- 
est work Virgil was a close student of the " Iliad " and the 
"Odyssey," and to them he is indebted for very many of his 
finest metaphors, similes, and descriptive passages, as well as 
for the general plan and structure of the entire work. To En- 
nius also is he indebted for many a verse. Homer was Virgil's 
superior in energy and originality, and in the martial grand- 
eur of his lines ; while the latter surpassed his master in the 
grace, melody, elegance, and harmony of his versification. 

Virgil enjoyed for his work that reward which many another 
worthy poet has been denied — the appreciation of his genius 
during his own lifetime. The poet, in accordance with a cus- 
tom that in his day was common, read or recited his poems in 
the presence of select friends and also in public. On one oc- 
casion he repeated the sixth book of his " ^Eneid " before his 
imperial patron Augustus and his sister Octavia, who was then 
mourning the recent death of her son Marcellus, the special 
favorite and adopted child of the emperor. In the part of the 
poem rehearsed by Virgil occurs the well-known passage that 
mourns with the tenderest pathos the too early death of the 
favorite prince. The closing lines, which alone reveal the 
name of the subject of the lament, run thus : 

" Ah, dear lamented boy, canst thou but break 
The stern decrees of fate, then wilt thou be 
Our own Marcellus ! — Give me lilies, brought 
In heaping handfuls. Let me scatter here 
Dead purple flowers ; these offerings at least 
To my descendant's shade I fain would pay, 
Though now, alas! an unavailing rite."* 

It is said that as Virgil read these verses Octavia was so car- 
ried away by her feelings that she fainted, and that the poet 
was afterwards presented with 10,000 sesterces (about $400) 
for each of the twenty-five lines of the passage. 

* Virgil's " ^Eneid," book vi. (Cranch's translation). 



LATIN LITERATURE. 451 

Horace, the second great poet of the Augustan Age, was 
born in the year 65 B.C., only five years later than Virgil, whom 
he outlived by about a single decade. He studied at Athens, 
fought with the republicans at Philippi, gained no glory — for he 
tells us himself how he ran away from the field — but lost his 
paternal estate at Venusia, which was confiscated, and under 
the imperial government commenced life anew as a clerk at 
Rome. Through his friend Virgil he secured the favor of 
Maecenas, and gained an introduction to Augustus, and thence- 
forth led the life of a courtier, dividing his time between the 
pleasures of the capital and the scenes of his pleasant farm 
near the village of Tibur. The latter years of his life were 
shadowed by the deaths of his poet-friends Virgil and Tibullus, 
and that of his generous patron Maecenas, whom he survived 
only a few weeks. Horace's " Odes," " Satires," and " Epis- 
tles " have all helped win for him his wide-spread fame; but 
the first best exhibit his rare power and genius. " His odes, 
indeed, possess a delicacy of insight, a fineness of touch, and a 
power of minute finish which very few writers have ever ex- 
hibited, and which have rendered them models of construction, 
valuable to poets of every school, having been no less carefully 
studied by Wordsworth than by Pope."* 

Ovid (42 b.c.-a.d. 18) is the third name in the triumvirate 
of poets that ruled the Augustan Age. He was the most 
learned of the three, seeming indeed to be acquainted with the 
whole round of Greek and Latin literature and speculation. 
For some fault or misdemeanor, the precise nature of which 
remains a profound secret to this day, Augustus, his former 
friend and patron, banished the poet to a small town away on 
the frontiers of the empire — on the bleak shores of the Euxine. 
There he spent the last years of his life, bewailing his hard lot 
in the mournful verses of his "Tristia." His most celebrated 
work is his " Metamorphoses," the preservation of which we 

* Morris's " Classical Literature," p. 300. 



452 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

owe to the merest good-fortune. When the emperor's decree 
was brought to him, he was at work revising the manuscript, 
which, in despair or anger, he flung into the fire. Fortunately 
some friend had previously made a copy of the work, and thus 
this literary treasure was saved to the world. The poem opens 
with a sublime description of Chaos and the creation of the 
world ; then tells of the production of monstrous life by the 
prolific earth, and of the changing races of men and giants; 
after which the poet proceeds to describe, through fifteen 
lengthy books, between two and three hundred metamorphoses, 
or transformations — such as the change of the companions of 
Ulysses into swine, of Cadmus into a serpent, and of Arethusa 
into a fountain — suffered by various persons, gods, heroes, and 
goddesses, as related in the innumerable fables of the Greek 
and Roman mythologies. 

We have already alluded to Tibullus as the friend of Virgil 
and Horace. His graceful elegies entitle his name to a promi- 
nent place among the poets of the Augustan Age. Propertius, 
too, was another honored and beloved member of the brilliant 
coterie of poets that have rendered the reign of Augustus ever 
memorable in the literary history of the world. 

Satire and Satirists. — Satire thrives best in the reeking soil 
and tainted atmosphere of an age of selfishness, immorality, 
and vice. Such an age was that which followed the Augustan 
era at Rome. The throne was held by such imperial monsters 
as Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, and Domitian. The profligacy of 
fashionable life at the capital and the various watering-places 
of the empire was open and shameless. The degradation of 
the court ; the corrupt and dissolute life of the upper classes ; 
the imbruted life of the masses, fed by largesses of corn 
and entertained with the bloody shows of the amphitheatre ; 
the decay of the ancient religion, and the almost universal 
prevalence of unbelief and absolute atheism; the utter loss of 
the simplicity and virtue of the early Roman fathers, and the 



LATIN LITERATURE. 453 

complete decay and degradation of the intellect — all these gave 
venom and point to the shafts of those who were goaded by 
the spectacle into attacking the immoralities and vices which 
were silently yet rapidly sapping the foundations of both society 
and state. Hence arose a succession of writers whose mastery 
of sharp and stinging satire has caused their productions to 
become the models of all subsequent attempts in the same 
species of literature. Three names stand out in special promi- 
nence — Persius, Juvenal, and Martial,* all of whom lived and 
wrote during the last half of the first and the beginning of the 
second century a.d., that is, during what we have called the 
Silver Age of Latin literature, of which period they are, indeed, 
the most prominent poetical representatives.! Their writings 
possess an historical value and interest, as it is through them 
that we gain such an insight as we could obtain in no other 
way into the venal and corrupt life of the capital during the 
early portion of the imperial period. 

The indignant protest of Persius, Juvenal, and Martial 
against the vice and degradation of their time is almost the 
last utterance of the Latin Muse. From this time forward the 
decay of the intellectual life of Rome was swift and certain. 
While the Greek intellect, as we have learned, survived by 
many centuries the destruction of the political life of Greece, 
the Latin intellect sank into decrepitude centuries before the 
final fall of the empire. The political fabric — so admirably 
consolidated had it become through the growth and labors of 
many centuries — remained standing, like an aged oak, long 
after its heart had been eaten away. But it could put forth no 

* Martial was an epigrammatist, but almost all his epigrams were pressed 
into the service of satire. 

t There are two other poets belonging to the Silver Age whose names 
must not be passed unmentioned — Lucan (a.d. 38-65) and Statius (a.d. 61- 
95). Lucan's only extant work is his " Pharsalia," an epic poem on the 
civil war between Cassar and Pompey. Statius wrote two epics, the 
"Thebai'd" and the " Achilleid," the latter being left incomplete. 



454 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

new shoots. After the death of Juvenal (about a.d. 120) the 
Roman world produced not a single poet of sufficient genius 
to merit our attention. 

Oratory among the Romans. — " Public oratory," as has been 
truly said, "is the child of political freedom, and cannot exist 
without it." We have seen this illustrated in the history of 
republican Athens. Equally well is the same truth exempli- 
fied by the records of the Roman state. All the great orators 
of Rome arose under the Republic. As during this period al- 
most the entire intellectual force of the nation was directed 
towards legal and political studies, it was natural, and indeed 
inevitable, that the most famous orators of the era should ap- 
pear as statesmen or advocates. Theology, science, and belles- 
lettres did not then, as they have come to do among our- 
selves, suggest inviting and popular themes for the best efforts 
of the public speaker. 

Roman oratory was senatorial, popular, or judicial. These 
different styles of eloquence were represented by the grave 
and dignified debates of the Senate, the impassioned and often 
noisy and inelegant harangues of the Forum, and the learned 
pleadings or ingenious appeals of the courts. Junius Brutus, 
Appius Claudius Caecus, the two Scipios, Cato the Censor, 
Caius and Tiberius Gracchus, Lucius Licinius, Marcus Anto- 
nius, Crassus, Sulpicius, Hortensius, Julius Caesar, Mark An- 
tony,* and Cicero are some of the most prominent names that 
have made the rostrum of the Roman Forum and the assem- 
bly-chamber of the Roman Senate famous in the records of 
oratory and eloquence. 

Most of these names are already familiar to us through our 
study of the political history of Rome. We have heard the 
indignant eloquence of Junius Brutus, which aroused the Ro- 
mans to the resistance and overthrow of the iniquitous decem- 

* Grandson of Marcus Antonius. 



LATIN LITERATURE. 455 

virate ; we have heard the aged patriot Appius Claudius 
forbidding his countrymen to treat with a victorious enemy; we 
have listened to the rebukes of the Censor Cato, and seen the 
results of that fatal peroration — " Carthage must be de- 
stroyed"; we have been persuaded by the calm and unimpas- 
sioned eloquence of Tiberius Gracchus as he pleaded the 
cause of the poor, and have been stirred by the fiery and im- 
petuous denunciations of his brother Caius as his hot and ve- 
hement eloquence hurried the masses along to the commission 
of indefensible violence against the ruling class; and we have 
felt our indignation, in opposition to our calmer judgment, ris- 
ing with that of the Romans as Antony discoursed over the 
body of the dead Caesar. Passing now all these names, and 
many others of scarcely less prominence, we shall stop to par- 
ticularize only two, Hortensius and Cicero, who are easily first 
among the orators of ancient Rome. 

Hortensius (born 114 B.C.) was a famous lawyer, whose name 
adorns the legal profession at the capital both as the learned 
jurist and the eloquent advocate. Cicero bestows rare praise 
upon this great orator by declaring that the excellence of his 
speeches was like a statue by Phidias, which only requires to 
be seen in order to be admired. His forensic talent won for 
him a lucrative law-practice, through which he gathered an im- 
mense fortune. Besides a mansion on the Palatine, he pos- 
sessed several villas, which were kept up with a most profuse 
expenditure. The olive-trees in his gardens were sprinkled 
with wine, to improve the flavor of the fruit. His fish-ponds 
were stocked with an infinite variety of fresh and marine fish, 
the food and health of which were matters of greater concern 
to their master than the food and health of his slaves. It is 
told that he actually wept over the untimely death of a favorite 
lamprey. He surpassed the youthful Aristotle or Demosthenes 
in the care he bestowed upon his dress. Before presenting 
himself to his audience, the folds of his mantle were carefully 
adjusted so as to produce the most appropriate and striking 



456 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

effects. Upon one occasion, as he was proceeding to the court, 
a man carelessly jostled him and disarranged his toga, for 
which the orator in great wrath instituted a suit for damages. 
We might overlook the idiosyncrasies and reckless expenditures 
of the eloquent advocate, but not so lightly can we pass the 
worse habit that he had of sometimes using his wealth to cor- 
rupt the courts before which he pleaded. 

But the brightness of the fame of Hortensius is dimmed by 
the lustre of the name of Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B -C.), 
the untiring student, the constant patriot, the polished orator. 
He has been called " the Edward Everett of antiquity." He 
enjoyed every advantage that wealth and parental ambition 
could confer or suggest. His teachers were the poet Archias 
and the orator Crassus. Like many others of the Roman pa- 
trician youth of his time, he was sent to Greece to finish his 
education in the schools of Athens. His mind once awakened, 
it ranged with ceaseless activity the wide domains of Grecian 
philosophy and science. Returning to Italy, he soon assumed 
a position of commanding influence at the Roman capital. His 
prosecution of Verres shows his hatred of the official corrup- 
tion and venality that disgraced his times ; his orations against 
Catiline illustrate his patriotism j his essays exhibit the wide 
range of his thoughts and the depth of his philosophical reflec- 
tions. All his productions evince the most scrupulous care in 
their preparation. He was a purist in language, and is said to 
have sometimes spent several days hunting for a proper word 
or phrase. His greatest fault was his overweening vanity, 
which appears in all he ever wrote, as well as in every act of 
his life. But the times in which Cicero lived rather than the 
orator himself are responsible for this. The ancient Romans 
possessed scarcely a trace of that sense of propriety which has 
grown up among us, and which forbids a person's celebrating 
his own virtues. Self-laudation, when not too fulsome, did not 
grate the ears of Cicero's auditors. 



LATIN LITERATURE. 457 

Latin Historians. — Ancient Rome produced four writers of 
history whose works have won for them a permanent fame — 
Caesar, Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus. Suetonius may also be men- 
tioned in this place, although his writings were rather biograph- 
ical than historical.* 

Of Caesar and his " Commentaries on the Gallic War," we 
have learned in a previous chapter. This work and his " Me- 
moirs on the Civil War" are the productions on which his 
fame as a writer depends. He also prepared a Latin grammar, 
a book on divination, a treatise on astronomy, and, besides, com- 
posed some poems that are not without merit. But Caesar was 
a man of affairs rather than a man of letters. Yet his " Com- 
mentaries " will always be mentioned along with the "Anaba- 
sis" of Xenophon, as a model of the narrative style of writing. 

Sallust (86-34 B.C.) was the contemporary and friend of 
Caesar. He was praetor of one of the African provinces ; and, 
following the example of the Roman officials of his time, he 
amassed by harsh if not unjust exactions an immense fortune, 
and erected at Rome a palatial residence with extensive and 
beautiful gardens, which became one of the most famous re- 
sorts of the literary characters of the capital. Sallust wrote 
with great pains in a style that was at once clear, forcible, and 
picturesque. All of his periods were carefully rounded and 
modelled after the most approved specimens of Greek writing. 
The two works upon which his fame rests are the " Conspiracy 
of Catiline" and the " Jugurthine War." Both of these pro- 
ductions are reckoned among the best specimens of prose 
writing in the entire range of Latin literature, and are found in 

* A fuller list of Roman historical authors would have to admit the name 
of Fabius Pictor, who lived in the age of Nsevius, and was the first historian 
of the Latin-speaking race ; that of Cato the Censor, of whose " Antiqui- 
ties" we possess the merest fragments; and that of Cornelius Nepos, who 
wrote in the first century B.C. An admirable work entitled " The Lives of 
Eminent Generals " is somewhat doubtfully ascribed to the last-named au- 
thor. 



458 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

the hands of every classical student in the universities of Eu- 
rope and America. 

Livy (59 b.c.-a.d. 17) was one of the brightest ornaments of 
the Augustan Age. In popular esteem he holds the first place 
among the Latin historical authors. Herodotus among the 
ancient, and Macaulay among the modern, writers of historical 
narrative are the names with which his is most frequently com- 
pared. His greatest work is his " Annals," a history of Rome 
from the earliest times to the year 9 B.C. Unfortunately, all 
save thirty-five of the books of this admirable production — the 
work filled one hundred and forty-two volumes — perished dur- 
ing the disturbed period that followed the overthrow of the 
empire. Many have been the laments over " the lost books 
of Livy." The fragments which remain have been universally 
read and admired for the inimitable grace and ease of the flow- 
ing narrative. Livy loved a story equally well with Herodotus. 
Like the Greek historian, he was over-credulous, and relates 
with charming ingenuousness, without the least questioning of 
their credibility, all the early legends, -myths, and ballads that 
were extant in his day, respecting the early affairs of Rome. 
Modern critics, among whom are Niebuhr, Arnold, and Momm- 
sen, have shown that all the first portion of his history is en- 
tirely unreliable as a chronicle of actual events. However, it 
is a most entertaining account of what the Romans themselves 
thought and believed respecting the origin of their race, the 
founding of their city and state, and the deeds and virtues of 
their forefathers. 

A little incident of the circus will pleasantly introduce to us 
the next historian, Tacitus, the " Roman Thucydides," of whom 
we wish to speak. The story is told by Pliny the Younger in one 
of his letters as follows : " At one of the circensian games," runs 
the epistle, " he [Tacitus] sat next to a stranger, who, after much 
discourse on various topics of learning, asked him if he was an 
Italian or a provincial. Tacitus replied, ' Your acquaintance 
with literature must have informed you who I am.' 'Ah,' said 



LATIN LITERATURE. 459 

the man, ' pray, then, is it Tacitus or Pliny I am talking with ?' " 
This passage assures us that the works of the historian had won 
for him an enviable fame before his death. The esteem of his 
own age has been succeeded by the no less ardent admiration 
of the present time. Tacitus was wealthy, virtuous, and elo- 
quent. He pleaded at the bar of the Roman courts, became 
the son-in-law of the commander Agricola, enjoyed the life of 
an honored courtier, travelled widely in both the West and the 
East, held important offices in the provinces, received the favor 
of Vespasian and Titus, witnessed the degradation of Rome 
under the monster Domitian, lived to see the brighter age of 
Nerva and Trajan, and probably died soon after the close of 
the long and prosperous reign of the latter. 

The works of Tacitus are his " Germania," a treatise on the 
manners and customs of the Germans ; the " Life of Agricola," 
his " History," and his "Annals." All of these are most ad- 
mirable productions, polished and graceful narratives, full of 
entertainment and instruction. His " Germania," written, it is 
thought by some, out of the fulness of knowledge derived from 
personal observation through service or residence on the Rhen- 
ish frontier, gives us the fullest information that we possess re- 
specting the manners, beliefs, and social arrangements of our 
barbarian ancestors while they were yet living beneath their 
native forests. Tacitus dwells with delight upon the simple 
life of the uncivilized Germans, and sets their virtues in strong 
contrast with the immoralities of the refined and cultured Ro- 
mans. The treatise on the life and campaigns of Agricola, 
his father-in-law, is pronounced one of the most admirable bi- 
ographies in the entire round of literature. It is a work of love, 
appreciative, and perhaps partial — its only fault. It gives a 
most vivid and picturesque portrayal of the conquest of Brit- 
ain and the establishment of Roman authority in that remote 
island. The " History " and the " Annals " cover the reigns of 
some of the best and some of the worst of the rulers of the 
early empire. The hot indignation of the virtuous and patri- 



460 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

otic historian, poured out in scathing invective against a Nero 
and a Domitian, has caused his name to be frequently placed 
with those of Persius, Juvenal, and the other Roman satirists. 

Suetonius (a.d. 75-160) was the biographer of the Twelve 
Caesars. It is to him that we are indebted for very many of 
the details of the lives of these early emperors. The picture 
which he draws is painted in dark colors, yet it is doubtless 
in the main a fairly reliable portraiture of some of the most 
detestable tyrants that ever disgraced a throne. 

Science, Ethics, and Philosophy. — Under this head may be 
grouped the names of Varro, Seneca, Pliny the Elder and Pliny 
the Younger, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Quintilian, and Phae- 
drus. 

Varro (116-26 B.C.) belongs to the later years of the republic. 
His almost universal knowledge has earned for him the title 
of "the most learned of the Romans." He witnessed the ter- 
rific scenes of the days of Sulla and Marius, of Pompey and 
Caesar, of Octavius and Antony. He himself was among the 
proscribed in the lists of the cruel Antony, and his magnificent 
villas — for he had immense wealth — were confiscated. Augus- 
tus gave him back his farms, but could not restore his library, 
which had perished in the sack of his villas. Like many an- 
other in those turbulent times, when he saw the hopeless ruin 
of the republic and the establishment of despotism in its place, 
he sought solace in the pursuit of literature. Almost the en- 
tire circle of letters was adorned by his versatile pen : he is 
said to have written five hundred books. He composed trea- 
tises on grammar, rhetoric, and satire, and wrote learned vol- 
umes on matters dramatic, historical, theological, and philoso- 
phical. His most valuable production, however, was his work 
on agriculture, a sort of hand-book for the Italian farmer. In 
the preface to the work he himself thus speaks of the under- 
taking and its purpose: " If I had leisure, I might write these 
things more conveniently, which I will now explain as I am 



LATIN LITERATURE. 46 1 

able, thinking that I must make haste; because, if a man be a 
bubble of air, much more so is an old man, for now my eightieth 
year admonishes me to get my baggage together before I leave 
the world. Wherefore, as you have bought a farm, which you 
are desirous to render profitable by tillage, and as you ask me 
to take this task upon me, I will try to advise you what must 
be done, not only during my stay here, but after my departure." 

Seneca (about a.d. 1-65), moralist and philosopher, has al- 
ready come to our notice as the tutor of Nero. The act of his 
life which has been most severely condemned was the defence 
which he made of his master before the Senate for the tyrant's 
murder of his mother, Agrippina. Nero requited but poorly 
the infamous service. Seneca possessed an enormous fortune 
estimated at 300,000,000 sesterces, which the ever-needy em- 
peror coveted; he accordingly accused him of taking part in 
a conspiracy against his life, ordered his death, and confiscated 
his estates. The philosopher met his fate calmly. Upon re- 
ceiving the decree of his master, he opened the veins of his 
body, and died in his bath, whither he had retired in order that 
the flow of the blood might be accelerated, for it had become 
sluggish from age. 

As a philosopher Seneca belonged to the school of the 
Stoics. He wrote many essays and letters, the latter intended 
for publication, containing lofty maxims of wisdom and virtue, 
which he certainly did not always follow in the conduct of his 
own life. He was a disbeliever in the popular religion of his 
countrymen, and entertained conceptions of God and his moral 
government not very different from the doctrines of Socrates. 
So admirable are his ethical teachings that it has been claimed 
the philosopher came under the influences of Christianity ; and 
several letters addressed to the apostle Paul, which are still 
extant, Were formerly referred to as proof of this fact; but these 
have been shown to be spurious. Besides his ethical and phil- 
osophical writings, Seneca composed ten tragedies, designed 
rather for reading than for the stage. Seneca's name will ever 



462 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

be noted as that of a great teacher of virtue and morality to a 
corrupt age, whose influences upon himself all his philosophy 
could not wholly resist. 

Pliny the Elder (a.d. 23-79) ls almost the only Roman who 
won renown as an investigator of the phenomena of nature. 
His life was a marvellously busy one, every moment being filled 
with public services, with observations, study, and writing. He 
seldom walked, but rode or was carried, that he might not lose 
a moment from his studies. At his meals and toilet he had a 
slave read to him. He once reproved a friend for interrupting 
the reader, and having him go back to correct a mispronun- 
ciation. " Did you not understand the word ?" asked Pliny. 
"Yes," replied the friend. "That was sufficient, then," re- 
sponded the philosopher. "Why take up time to repeat it? 
We have lost ten lines by the interruption." 

Pliny lost his life in an over-zealous pursuit of science. He 
was in command of the Roman fleet at Misenum when oc- 
curred the eruption of Vesuvius which resulted in the de- 
struction of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Subduing the fears of 
his officers, who wished to flee from the scene, Pliny employed 
the ships of his fleet in rescuing the inhabitants of the coast. 
His vessels, while engaged in this work, were covered with the 
hot ashes that thickened the air and fell incessantly in heavy 
showers. In order to gain a better view of the mountain, the 
philosopher ordered his sailors to put him ashore; but unfort- 
unately he ventured too near the volcano, and was overcome 
and suffocated by the sulphurous exhalations. 

The only work of Pliny that has been spared to us is his " Nat- 
ural History," embracing thirty-seven volumes. It is a mon- 
ument of untiling industry and extensive research. It contains 
20,000 citations from more than two thousand volumes of vari- 
ous authors. It was the Roman Encyclopaedia, containing all 
that the world then knew respecting astronomy, geography, 
botany, zoology, medicine, and the arts of painting and statu- 
ary. In this work he defends the theory of the sphericity of 



LATIN LITERATURE. 463 

the earth, and declares that it is a globe hanging, by what 
means supported he knows not, in vacant space. 

In connection with the name of Pliny the Eider must be 
mentioned that o<" his nephew, Pliny the Younger. He suc- 
ceeded to the estate, and to somewhat of the fame, of his cele- 
brated uncle. He was a man of letters, being a graceful writer 
and orator, yet was not a naturalist like the first Pliny. He 
was a servile courtier, and wrote a eulogy upon the character 
of the Emperor Trajan which is filled with the most fulsome 
praise. The large number of his epistles, poems, histories, and 
tragedies indicate his industry and untiring devotion to letters. 

In the year a.d. 103, Pliny was appointed propraetor of Pon- 
tus, in Asia Minor, and while he was in that office took place 
the famous correspondence between him and Trajan respecting 
the Christians in that distant province, and the best method of 
dealing with the new sect. The letter of Pliny to the emperor 
is of historical interest because of the information it contains 
in regard to the rapid spread of Christianity during the first 
century of its existence, and respecting the character of the 
early professors of the new faith, and the light in which they 
were viewed by the rulers of the Roman world. Pliny speaks 
of the matter as a " contagious superstition, that had seized not 
cities only, but the lesser towns also, and the open country." 
Yet he could find no fault in the converts to the new doctrines. 
Notwithstanding, because they steadily refused to sacrifice to 
the Roman gods, he ordered many to be put to death for their 
"inflexible obstinacy." 

Marcus Aurelius the emperor and Epictetus the slave hold 
the first places among the ethical teachers of Rome. The for- 
mer wrote his "Meditations"; but the latter, like Socrates, com- 
mitted nothing to writing, so that we know of the character of 
his teachings only through one of his pupils, Arrian by name. 
Epictetus was for many years a slave at the capital, but, secur- 
ing in some way his freedom, he became a teacher of philoso- 
phy. Domitian having ordered all philosophers to leave Rome, 



464 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Epictetus fled to Epirus, where he established a school in which 
he taught the doctrines of Stoicism. His name is inseparably 
linked with that of Marcus Aurelius as a teacher of the purest 
system of ethics that is found outside of Christianity. Epicte- 
tus and Aurelius were the last eminent representatives and ex- 
positors of the philosophy of Zeno. They were the last of the 
Stoics. In them Stoicism bore its consummate flower and fruit. 
The doctrines of the Galilean were even then fast taking pos- 
session of the Roman world ; for, giving more place to the affec- 
tions and all the natural instincts, they readily won the hearts 
of men from the cold, unsympathetic abstractions of the Gre- 
cian sage. 

Quintilian (a.d. 40-118) was the one great grammarian and 
rhetorician that the Roman race produced. Eor about a quar- 
ter of a century he was the most noted lecturer at Rome on' 
educational and literary subjects. One of the booksellers of 
the capital, after much persuasion, finally prevailed upon the 
teacher to publish his lectures. They were received with great 
favor, and Quintilian 's "Institutes" have never ceased to be stud- 
ied and copied by all succeeding writers on education and 
rhetoric. Not only does the work contain excellent lessons 
and precepts for writers, speakers, and teachers, but also a 
most valuable and appreciative criticism and comparison of 
the literatures of Greece and Rome. From the day of the fort- 
unate publication of his lectures, their graces of style and per- 
suasions of thought and argument have never failed to inspire 
in all readers of them a real love for true literary excellence, 
and to encourage thousands in the earnest pursuit of learning 
and letters.* 

*The allusions which we have made to the publishing trade suggest a 
word respecting ancient publishers and books. There were in Rome several 
publishing houses, which, in their day, enjoyed a wide reputation, and con- 
ducted a very extended business. " Indeed, the antique book-trade," says 
Guhl, "was carried on on a scale hardly surpassed by modern times. . . . The 
place of the press in our literature was taken by the slaves." Through 



LATIN LITERATURE. 465 

During the reign of Tiberius, Phaedrus, the Roman JEsop, 
wrote his fables, which were, for the most part, translations or 
imitations of the productions of his Grecian master. A little 
later ? in the reign of Titus, Frontinus wrote a valuable work 
on the Roman system of engineering, and a still more inter- 
esting book on the Roman aqueducts. This latter work gives 
us much interesting information respecting those stupendous 
structures. 

Writers of the Early Latin Church. — The Christian authors 
of the first three centuries, like the writers of the New Testa- 
ment, employed the Greek, that being the language of learning 
and culture. Clement of Rome, Clement of Alexandria, Jus- 
tin, Origen, Eusebius, Chrysostom, and Basil are a few of the 
celebrated fathers of the early Church who used in their works 
the language of Athens. Of these Chrysostom ("golden- 
mouthed "), so called on account of his persuasive oratory, 
was perhaps the most renowned. 

But, though the Greek language was first chosen as the me- 
dium for the dissemination of Christian doctrines, as the Latin 
tongue gradually came into more general" use throughout the 
extended provinces of the Roman Empire the Christian au- 
thors naturally began to use the same in the composition of 
their works. Hence almost all the writings of the fathers of 
the Church produced during the last centuries of the empire 
were composed in Latin. From among the many names that 

practice they gained surprising facility as copyists, and books were multi- 
plied with great rapidity. And, as to the books themselves, we must bear 
in mind that a book in the ancient sense was simply a roll of manuscript or 
parchment, and contained nothing like the amount of matter held by an or- 
dinary modern volume. Thus Caesar's " Gallic Wars," which makes a single 
volume of moderate size with us, made eight Roman books. Most of the 
houses of the wealthy Romans contained libraries. The collection of Sam- 
manicus Serenus, tutor of Gordian, numbered 62,000 books. There were 
twenty-nine public libraries in Rome established by the emperors. 

21 



466 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

adorn the Church literature of this period, we shall select only 
two for special mention — St. Jerome and St. Augustine. 

Jerome (a.d. 342-420) was a native of Pannonia. He stud- 
ied at Rome and at Constantinople, and travelled through all the 
provinces of the empire, from Britain to Palestine. For many 
years he led a monastic life at Bethlehem. His praises have 
ever been in all the churches, on account of his eminent ser- 
vices in translating the Scriptures into Latin. The present 
Vulgate is based upon the ancient version by Jerome. 

Aurelius Augustine (a.d. 354-430) was born near Carthage, 
in Africa. He was the most eminent writer of the Christian 
Church during the later Roman period. His numerous works 
— sermons, commentaries, and epistles — form a perfect library 
of themselves ; but his fame rests chiefly on his " Confessions " 
and his " City of God," two of the most remarkable productions 
of all Christian writings. The larger part of the " Confessions " 
is a touching narrative of the struggles of soul that resulted in 
his conversion. This work is a classic in Christian literature, 
and has been translated into almost every language in which the 
Bible is read. The " City of God " is a truly wonderful work. 
The author writes with the fervor of an Isaiah, with the pro- 
phetic vision of the exile of Patmos. The book was written 
just when the Goths and Vandals were taking possession of 
the empire, when Rome was becoming the spoil of the barba- 
rians. It was designed to answer the charge of the Pagans 
that Christianity, turning the hearts of the people away from 
the worship of the ancient gods, was the cause of the calami- 
ties that were befalling the Roman state. It symbolizes Rome 
as the city of the world, which only presumptuously can call it- 
self the "Eternal City"; while under the figure of the City of 
God is portrayed the enduring nature of the Christian Church, 
the New Jerusalem, the truly " Eternal City." 

Roman Law and Law Literature. — Although the Latin writ- 
ers in all the departments of literary effort which we have so 



LATIN LITERATURE. 467 

far reviewed, did much valuable work, yet, as we have had oc- 
casion to repeat frequently, the Roman intellect in all these 
directions was under Greek guidance ; its work was imitative, 
and throughout all its course unmarked by any great originality, 
boldness, or creative energy. But in another department it was 
different. We mean, of -course, the field of legal and political 
science. Here the Romans ceased to be pupils and became 
teachers. Here they are no longer the servile imitators of the 
excellences of others — although they do not refuse helpful in- 
struction — but they become creators and masters. Nations, 
like men, have their mission. Rome's mission was to give laws 
to the world. 

Our knowledge of the law -system of the Romans begins 
with the legislation of the Twelve Tables, about 450 b.c. The 
laws engrossed upon these tablets must be regarded as being 
in the main a systemized collection of the rules and regula- 
tions that had grown up during many preceding centuries. 
Throughout all the republican period the laws of the state 
were growing less harsh and cruel, less invidious in their dis- 
tinctions between the higher and lower classes of the commu- 
nity, and were gradually effacing the marks of their barbarous 
origin and becoming more liberal and scientific. From 100 
B.C. to a.d. 250 lived and wrote the most famous of the Roman 
jurists and law-writers, who created the most remarkable law 
literature ever produced by any people. The great unvarying 
principles that underlie and regulate all social and political 
relations were examined, illustrated, and clearly enunciated. 
Gaius, Ulpian,Paulus, Papinian, and Pomponius are among the 
most renowned writers who, during the period just indicated, 
enriched by their writings and decisions this branch of Latin 
literature. 

In the year a.d. 527 Justinian became emperor of the East- 
ern Roman Empire. He almost immediately entered upon the 
work of collecting and arranging in a systematic manner the 
immense mass of Roman laws and the writings of the jurists. 



468 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

The undertaking was like the labor of the Twelve Tables, only 
infinitely greater. Since those were set up in the Forum one 
thousand years had passed. During these centuries the limits 
of Latium had expanded until they embraced three continents ; 
and over all these regions, with their motley populations, Rome 
had extended her authority and her laws. There was no pos- 
sible relation of life that was not recognized and dealt with 
by the Roman government. Men's relations to the family, to 
the city, to the state, to the gods, were clearly defined and 
legislated upon and decreed about by senate, emperors, and 
municipal magistrates. During all these centuries, too, the 
best intellects of the nation had been busy annotating and 
commenting upon all this growing mass of legislation, and 
producing whole libraries of learned works respecting the 
science of jurisprudence and government in general. Bearing 
these things in mind, we can form some faint conception of the 
enormous amount of material of a legal character that had been 
created by the time of the subversion of the empire of the 
West. 

Justinian committed the task of collating, revising, condens- 
ing, and harmonizing all this matter to the celebrated lawyer 
Tribonian, with whom were associated during the course of the 
work fourteen assistants. This commission began its labors 
in the year ad. 528, and in five years the task was completed, 
and given to the world in the form of the "Corpus Juris Ci- 
vilis," or "Body of the Civil Law." This consisted of three 
parts: the "Code," the "Pandects," and the "Institutes." 
The " Code " was a revised and compressed collection of all 
the laws, instructions to judicial officers, and opinions on legal 
subjects, promulgated by the different emperors since the time 
of Hadrian; the "Pandects" (all-containing) were a digest 
or abridgment of the writings, opinions, and decisions of the 
most eminent of the old Roman jurists and lawyers. Two 
thousand books of thirty-nine different authors, all of whom 
lived between B.C. 100 and a.d. 250, were collected, and from 



LATIN LITERATURE. 469 

this enormous mass of manuscript were culled nine thousand 
extracts, which contained the sum and substance of all that 
three centuries and more of law -scholars had thought and 
written. These excerpts were arranged under their proper 
titles, and filled fifty books. This part of the " Corpus Juris " 
is by far the most important and interesting, as it deals with 
the principles of legal science, and has to do with private law, 
which touches the transactions of every-day life, while the 
" Code " is mainly concerned with public law. The " In- 
stitutes" were a condensed edition of the " Pandects," and 
were intended to form an elementary text-book for the use of 
students. 

When the great work was completed, copies were furnished 
to all the law-schools of Constantinople, Rome, Alexandria, 
Berytus, Caesarea, and other cities of the empire. It was the 
sole text-book of the youth engaged in the study of the law. 
That the work might not become corrupted by glosses and 
additions, Justinian ordered that no abbreviations should be 
used in copying the books, and that no commentaries should 
be written upon them, although translations might be made 
into the Greek, but these " must be close and literal versions." 

The Body of the Roman Law thus preserved and trans- 
mitted was the great contribution of the Latin intellect to civili- 
zation. It has exerted a profound influence upon all the legal 
systems of modern Europe. During the Dark Ages its study 
abated ; but early in the twelfth century there was a great re- 
vival of interest in it in all the law-schools of Italy, especially 
at Bologna. As a result of this fresh examination of the ad- 
mirable system of jurisprudence of ancient Rome, the Justinian 
Code became the groundwork of the present law-system of 
Italy, of Southern France, and of Germany. It also became 
auxiliary law in Northern France and in Spain, while in Eng- 
land the laws of our Teutonic ancestors have been by it 
greatly influenced and modified. # Thus has Rome given laws 
* Hadley's " Introduction to Roman Law," p. 25 et seq. 



470 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

to all civilized peoples — thus does the once little Palatine city 
of the Tiber still rule the world. The religion of Judea, the 
arts of Greece, and the laws of Rome are three very real and 
potent elements in modern civilization. 

Close of Latin Literature. — About the time that the Emperor 
Justinian at Constantinople was collecting and publishing the 
body of the Roman law, there appeared in Italy, under Theod- 
oric the Ostrogoth, a writer whose name may be considered 
as marking the close of Latin literature. This was Boethius 
(a.d. 470-526), often spoken of as "the last of the Romans." 
That the old Roman pride of family was not yet dead is shown 
by the name the philosopher bore — Anicius Manlius Torquatus 
Severinus Boethius. Theodoric was for a time his friend and 
patron, and made him his adviser and chief minister; but, be- 
ing led to believe that Boethius was concerned in a conspiracy 
for the expulsion of the Goths from Italy and the re-establish- 
ment of the Roman power, he caused him to be put to death. 
It was while in prison awaiting his fate that Boethius wrote his 
famous work entitled " De Consolatione Philosophise " (" On the 
Consolation Afforded by Philosophy "). This work possessed 
a peculiar fascination for the scholars of succeeding centuries, 
especially for persons whose experience had taught them the 
instability of human affairs. King Alfred of England trans- 
lated it into Anglo-Saxon for the use of his subjects, and Eliza- 
beth, while in prison in Mary's reign, found solace for her lonely 
hours by turning it into English. And its popularity is again 
illustrated by the fact that, out of the thirty-one books which 
composed the entire library of Charles V. in his retirement at 
Yusta, there were three copies of the " Consolation " in as 
many different languages. 

The " Consolation of Philosophy " is the last lament of the 
dying Roman world. The proud race that had conquered so 
much of the earth, and had impressed its language, its laws, its 
customs, and its arts upon so many peoples, was now become 



LATIN LITERATURE. 47 1 

thoroughly enfeebled through luxury, despotism, and vice. 
All the last centuries of the empire had been marked by a sure 
and steady decline in the vigor and productiveness of the 
Latin intellect. With the fifth century came the barbarians 
from beyond all the frontiers of the empire. They trooped 
through all its provinces, and established themselves at last 
in every portion of France and Spain and Italy, of Britain 
and Africa. But the settlement of the conquering tribes was 
not at once effected. Throughout the fifth and sixth centuries 
the barbarians were on the move. All the provinces were 
traversed and retraversed by their savage bands. Everywhere 
the country was laid waste. Cities were sacked and burned. 
Villas were despoiled of their patrician furniture. Temples, 
churches, and public buildings of every kind were stripped of 
their treasures. The masterpieces of Grecian and Roman art 
were broken in pieces. The invaluable records and rolls of 
the museums and libraries, public and private, were scattered 
and lost. So complete was the destruction of the contents of 
the old libraries that scarcely a single manuscript of the Ro- 
man period has been preserved in an unmutilated condition. 
As we have seen, it is only fragments that we now possess of 
many of the productions of the most eminent of the Latin 
writers. At last, when the fury of the invasion was over, and 
the rough intruders began to settle down and establish them- 
selves amidst the smouldering ruins of the empire they had 
destroyed, it seemed as though art and literature and culture 
had disappeared forever from the face of the earth. But out 
of the chaos a new creation was to be formed, fairer than the 
one that had been destroyed. Conqueror and conquered soon 
begin to blend. Throughout the sixth, seventh, and eighth 
centuries the process of intermingling and assimilation goes 
on. Roman and barbarian alike disappear from view ; and 
at last, in the ninth century, there appear new peoples and 
tongues — the nations and languages of modern Europe. 



INDEX. 



A. 

Abraham, 6, 87. 
Academy at Athens, 167. 
Ac'ar-na'ni-a, 126. 
A-chae'an League, 193. 
A-chae'ans, 130. 
A-cha'i-a, (a-ka'ya), 126. 
A-crop'o-lis, Athenian, 211. 
Ac'ti-um, battle of, 351. 
A'dri-an-o'ple, battle of, 397. 
^E-ga'tian Islands, naval battle near, 

283. 
./E'gos Pot'a-mos, battle of, 173. 
./E'mil-i-a'nus, Scipio, 305. 
^E-o'li-ans, 130, 135. 
^E'qui-ans, 256. 
^Es'chi-nes, 225. 
./Es'chy-lus, 221. 
^E'sop, 229. 

./E'ti-us, Roman general, 406. 
yE-to'li-a, 126. 
./E-to'li-an League, 193. 
Ag'a-mem'non, 132, 134. 
A-ges'i-la'us, 174, 175. 
A-gric'o-la, 369. 
Agriculture, state of, in Italy, 309, 

312; in Sicily, 309. 
Ag'ri-gen'tum, 275. 
Ag'rip-pi'na, 366. 
Ah'ri-man, 122. 
A-la'ni, 400, 405. 
Al'a-ric, 398, 399, 401-404. 
Alba Longa, 241, 242. 
Al-bi'nus, 384. 
Al-cae'us, 221. 
Al'ci-bi'a-des, 172. 



Al'e-man'ni, 394. 

A-le'si-a, 337. 

Alexander the Great, 180-185. 

Alexandria, founded by Alexander, 

181 ; museum and library at, 191 ; 

Pharos, 191 ; population of, 357. 
Al'li-a, battle of, 260. 
Alphabets of Phoenician origin, 105, 

106. 
Alps, Hannibal's passage of, 290. 
A-ma'sis, king of Egypt, 25. 
Am'mon, oasis of, 182. 
A-mo'sis, king of Egypt, 19. 
Am'u-noph III., 20, 37. 
Am-phic'ty-on'ic Council, 204. 
Amphitheatres, Roman, 419- 42I; 

shows of, 421. 
Am'y-tis, 76, 83. 
A-na'cre-on, 221. 
An'ax-ag'o-ras, 236. 
An'dro-ni'cus, L., 442. 
Animal-worship, 29, 31. 
An-tal'ci-das, peace of, 175. 
Antioch, city of, 189, 357, 372. 
An-ti'o-chus IV. of Syria, 190. 
An-ti'o-chus the Great, 301. 
Antiquity of man, 1. 
An'to-ni'nus Pi'us, Roman emperor, 

375- 

Antony, Mark, his oration at Caesar's 
funeral, 346 ; usurpations of, 347 ; 
shares the empire with Octavius, 
349' 35° > revels with Cleopatra, 
350; flees from Actium, 351 ; his 
death, 352. 

A-pel'les, 216. 



474 



INDEX. 



A pis, 30, III. 

A-poc'ry-pha, 99. 

Ap'pi-us Clau'di-us Cae'cus, 269. 

Ap'pi-us Clau'di-us the decemvir, 257, 

258. 
A-pu'li-a, 239. 

A'quae Sex'ti-ae, battle of, 316. 
Aqueducts, Roman, 427, 428. 
Arabian tribes, 6. 
Ar-be'la, battle of, 182. 
Ar-ca'di-a, 126. 
Ar-ca'di-us, Eastern Roman emperor, 

393. 
Ar'chi-me'des, 236, 296. 
Architecture, Assyrian, 66-69. 

Babylonian, 81-85. 

Chaldasan, 50, 51. 

Grecian, 208-212. 

Pelasgian, 208. 

Persian, 124. 

Roman, 412-434. 
Archons at Athens, 145. 
A're-op'a-gus, Council of the, 147. 
Ar'go-lis, 126. 

Ar'go-naut'ic Expedition, 4, 131. 
Ar'is-ti'des the Just, 164, 165. 
Ar'is-toph'a-nes, 222. 
Ar'is-tot'le, 232. 
Ar-min'i-us, 358. 
Ar'ta-pher'nes, 115, 150. 
Ar'tax-erx'es L, 116; II., 116; III., 

117. 
Ar'te-mis'i-a, 212. 
Ar-ver'ni, 337. 
Ar'y-ans, 6-9. 
As'shur-ba'ni-pal, 61, 70. 
As'shur-i'zer-pal, 58. 
Assyria, geology of, 45. 
Assyrian libraries, 69. 
Assyrian monarchy, 56-63 ; nature 
of the government, 64 ; cruel dis- 
position of kings, 65 ; royal sports, 
65 ; capital cities, 66 ; palaces, 67 ; 
chronology of, 86. 
As-ty'a-ges, 108. 
Athenian constitution, 147. 
Athens, founding of, 144; kings of, 



144 ; archons, 145 ; expulsion of 
tyrants from, 149 ; burned by the 
Persians, 157; walls rebuilt, 160; 
Long Walls of, n. 163 ; Periclean 
Age at, 168 ; becomes an imperial 
city, 169; pestilence at, 171 ; walls 
levelled by Spartans, 172; estab- 
lishment of oligarchy, 173. 

At'ta-lus III., 192. 

At'ti-ca, 126. 

At'ti-la, 406, 407. 

Augurs, college of, at Rome, 250. 

Au'gus-tine, Au-re'li-us, 466. 

Au-gus'tu-lus, last Roman emperor 
in the West, 410. 

Au-re'li-an, Roman emperor, 384, 385. 

Au-re'li-us, Marcus, Roman emperor, 
376, 377, 463. 

B. 

Babylon, great edifices of, 81 ; walls 
of, 84, n. 85 ; fall of, 78-80 ; recent 
excavations at, n. 83. 

Babylonia, productions of, 45 ; geol- 
ogy of, 45' 74. 

Babylonian chronology, 86. 

Babylonian monarchy, 74-81. 

Basques (basks), 4. 

Be'his-tun, rock of, 113. 

Bel-shaz'zar, 78, 79, 80. 

Ben'e-ven'tum, battle of, 269. 

Bes'ti-a, consul, 314. 

Bib'u-lus, 342. 

Boe-o'tia, 126. 

Bo-e'thi-us, 470, 471. 

Bor-sip'pa, 79-81. 

Bren'nus, 262. 

Britain invaded by Caesar, 337; con- 
quered by Claudius, 364. 

Brun-di'si-um, 340. 

Brut'ti-um, 239. 

Brutus, L. Junius, 253. 

Brutus, the liberator, 346, 347, 349. 

Bur-gun'di-ans, 400, 405. 

Bur'rhus, 366. 

Bu'sen-ti'nus, river, 404. 

By-zan'ti-um, 389. 



INDEX. 



475 



c. 

Cad'mus, 130. 

Caesar Augustus (see Octavius). 

Caesar Caius (see Caligula). 

Caesar, Julius, proscribed by Sulla, 
324 ; early life, 333 ; debts, 334 ; 
forms the First Triumvirate, 335 ; 
his campaigns in Gaul and Britain, 
335 ; crosses the Rubicon, 339 ; be- 
comes master of Italy, 340 j de- 
feats Pompeyat Pharsalia, 342; in 
Egypt, 342 ; defeats Pharnaces, 
343 ; crushes Pompeians at Thap- 
sus, 343 ; his triumph, 343 ; his 
genius as a statesman, 344 ; his 
death, 345 ; literary works, 457. 

Cae-sa'ri-on, 351. 

Ca-la'bri-a, 239. 

Ca'lah, 58. 

Caledonians, 369. 

Ca-lig'u-la, 362-364. 

Camburian mountains, 127. 

Cam-by 'ses, 24, no, in. 

Ca-mil'lus, 260, 262. 

Cam-pa'ni-a, 239. 

Canaanites, 5, 91, 101, 104. 

Can'nae, battle of, 293. 

Capitol, Roman, 244, 413-415. 

Ca'pre-ae, island of, 361. 

Cap'u-a, 295, 296. 

Car'a-cal'la, Roman emperor, 382, 

383. 

Ca-rac'ta-cus, 365. 

Car'che-mish, 20, 24. 

Carthage, 271 ; empire of, 271 ; com- 
pared with Rome, 272 ; destroyed 
by Romans, 305; rebuilt by Julius 
Caesar, 344 ; made capital of Van- 
dal empire, 405. 

Carthage, New, in Spain, 287. 

Cas-san'der, 188. 

Cas'si-us, the liberator, 345, 346, 349. 

Catacombs, Roman, 387. 

Cat'i-line, 322, 332, 333. 

Cato, M. P. Uticensis, 343. 

Cato, the Censor, 304. 

Ca-tul'lus, 446. 



Cau'dine Forks, 266. 
C e'er ops, 130. 
Cel'ti-be'ri-ans, 306. 
Celts, migrations of, 8. 
Censors, Roman, 259. 
Cer-ci'na, island of, 321. 
Chaer'o-ne'a, battle of, 179. 
Chaldaean monarchy, 45-49 ; chro- 
nology of, 86. 
-Ghaldaeans, 5 ; ethnic relations, 6, 
46, n. 74; religion of, 50; burial- 
mounds of, 51 ; their writing, 52; 
literature among, 54 ; science, 55 ; 
pioneers of civilization, 55 ; tem- 
ples of, 69. 
Chalon (sha'lon'), battle of, 405. 
Cha'res, 215. 
■Ghed'or-la'o-mer, 48. 
Che'ops, 17, 35. 
Chinese Wall, n. 395. 
-Ghi'os, island of, 127. 
•Ghos'ro-es, 372. 
Chronology, Assyrian, 86. 

Babylonian, 86. 
Chaldaean, 86. 
Egyptian, 15,25. 
Grecian, 187. 
Hebrew, 100. 
Persian, 119. 
of the Ptolemies, 196. 
of the Seleucidae, 196. 
Roman, 252, 354, 378, 
411. 
€hrys'os-tom, 465. 
Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 329, 333, 335, 

348, 456. 
Cim'bri, 315,316. 
Ci'mon, 166, 167. 
Cin'cin-na'tus, 256. 
Cin'e-as, 269. 
Cin'na, 321. 

Cir-cen'sian games, 417. 
Cir'cus Max'i-mus, 244, 373, 416. 
Cir'rha, 205. 

Civil war, between Caesar and Pom- 
pey, 340 ; between Marius and Sul- 
la, 319-322. 



476 



INDEX. 



Claudian aqueduct, 365. 

Claudius, Roman emperor, 364-366. 

Cle'on, 172. 

Cle'o-pa'tra, 192, 350, 353. 

Cli'tus, 183. 

Clyt'em-nes'tra, 134. 

Co'drus, 144. 

Col'chis, 103, 132. 

Col'la-ti'nus, Tar-quin'i-us, 253. 

Col'os-se'um, 369, 420, 421. 

Co-los'sus at Rhodes, 215. 

Com'mo-dus, Roman emperor, 379, 

380. 
Constantine II., 390. 
Constantine the Great, 388-390. 
Constantinople, city of, 389, 390. 
Con-stan'ti-us I., 388 ; II., 390, 391. 
Consuls, Roman, first, 253. 
Cor-cy'ra, island of, 127. 
Cor-fin'i-um, 318. 
Corinth, 194, 302, 334. 
Corinthian War, 175. 
Co'ri-o-la'nus, 255. 
Cor-ne'li-a, mother of the Gracchi, 

3)3- 
Cor'pus Ju'ris Ci-vi'lis, 468, 469. 
Cor'si-ca, 284. 

Council, first, of Church, 389. 
Cras'sus, M., 324, 327, 333, n. 334, 335, 

338. f 
Cre-mo'na, 286. 
Crete, island of, 128. 
Crce'sus, king of Lydia, 79, 109, 143. 
Cryp'ti-a, 141. 
Ctes'i-phon, 372. 
Cu'mae, oracle of, 135. 
Cu-nax'a, battle of, 174. 
Cuneiform writing, 52, n. 71. 
Cu'ri-o, 341. 
Cushites, 5. 
Cy-ax'a-res, 62, 108. 
Cyc'la-des, 127. 
Cy'clo-pe'an architecture, 208. 
Cy'lon, 146. 
Cynics, 234. 

Cyn'os-ceph'a-lae, battle of, 300. 
Cy-re'ne, 135. 



Cyrus the Great, 79, 109, no; the 

Younger, 173. 
Cythera (si-thee'ra), island of, 128. 

D. 

Daniel, 80. 

Da-ri'us I., 112, 114, 150; II., 116; 

III., 117. 
Da'tis, 115, 150. 
David, king of Hebrews, 94. 
Deb'o-rah, 92. 
Decemvirs, first board, 257 ; second, 

258. 
De'ci-us, Roman emperor, 384. 
De'los, island of, 127, 165. 
Delphi, oracle of, 126, 157, 201, 210. 
De-mos'the-nes, 179, 225. 
Di-a'na, Temple of, at Ephesus, 209. 
Di'o-cle'ti-an, Roman emperor, 386- 

388. 
Di-og'e-nes, 234. 
Do-do'na, oracle of, 126, 200. 
Do-mi'ti-an, Roman emperor, 370, 

37i- 
Dorians, 130, 135. 
Dra'co, 145. 

Drep'a-na, defeat of Romans at, 281. 
Du-il'li-us, 276. 
Dyr-ra'chi-um, 342. 



Eastern Roman Empire, 398. 

Ec-bat'a-na, 109. 

Ec-no'mus, naval battle of, 277. 

Egypt, geology of, 13 ; climate and 
productions, 14 ; capitals of, 16. 

Egyptians, 5 ; ethnic character of, 6 ; 
chronology of, 15, 25 ; classes of, 
26 ; priesthood, 26 ; the warrior 
class, 27 ; religious doctrines, 28 ; 
animal - worship among, 29; ex- 
planation of animal - worship, 31 ; 
judgment of the dead, 32 ; tombs, 
33; palaces and temples,35; sculpt- 
ure* 37 > glass - manufacture, 39 ; 
writing, 40; science; influence of 
institutions upon history, 43. 



INDEX. 



477 



El'a-gab'a-lus, 383, 384. 

E'la-mites, 48. 

Elephantine, island of, 15. 

Elijah the prophet, 97. 

Elisha the prophet, 97. 

Embalming among Egyptians, 43. 

En'ni-us, 443. 

E-pam'i-non'das, 176. 

Ep'ic-te'tus, 463. 

Ep'i-cu're-ans, 235. 

Ep'i-cu'rus, 235. 

E-pi'rus, 126. 

E-re'tri-a captured by Persians, 151. 

E-sar-had'don, 61. 

Esthonians, 4. 

Ethiopians, 5, ill. 

E-tru'ri-a, 239. 

E-trus'cans, 240. 

Eu-bce'a, island of, 127, 151. 

Eu'clid, 236. 

Eu'me-nes IT., 192. 

Eu'nus, 309. 

Euphrates, basin of, 45. 

Eu-rip'i-des, 221. 

E'vil-me-ro'dach, 78. 

F. 

Fa'bi-us Quintus, 288. 

Fa'bi-us the delayer, 292, 393. 

Fa-bric'i-us, 269. 

Finns, 4. 

Fleet, first Roman, 276. 

Forum, Roman, 243. 

Fron-ti'nus, 465. 

G- 

Ga'des, 105. 

Galba, Roman emperor, 368. 

Ga-le'ri-us, Roman emperor, 388. 

Gal'li-a Cis'al-pi'na, 239. 

Gallic wars, 335. 

Games of Greeks, 202-204. 

Gauls, settle in Italy, 240; sack Rome, 

260 ; war with, 285 ; conquered by 

Caesar, 335. 
Ge-dro'si-a, 184. 

Gen'ser-ic, king of the Vandals, 40S. 
German tribes, emigrations of, 8. 



Ger-man'i-cus, 360. 

Ge'ta, Roman emperor, 382. 

Gladiatorial combats, 399, 422-424 ; 

suppression of, 424, 425. 
Gladiators, war of the, 326. 
Golden house of Nero, 367. 
Gor'dian, Roman emperor, 384. 
Gordian knot, 180. 
Go'shen, land of, 88. 
Goths, 395-397- 
Grac'chi, reforms of, 311. 
Gracchus, Caius, 312, 313. 

Tiberius, 312. 
Graeco-Persian wars, 150-159. 
Gra-ni'cus, battle of, 180. 
Gra'ti-an, Roman emperor, 394, 397. 
Great fire at Rome, 366. 
Grecian migrations and settlements, 

133-135. 

Greece, divisions of, 126; influence 
of country upon inhabitants, 128. 

Greek art, origin of, 72. 

Greeks, cosmography of, 197 ; relig- 
ion o(, 197-206; mythology of, 198, 
199 ; notions of the future, 202 ; 
sacred games, 202 ; hospitality 
among, 206 ; humanity of, 207 ; 
temples, 208; sculpture and paint- 
ing, 212; literature, 219-227; sci- 
ence, 235. 

H. 

Ha'dri-an, Roman emperor, 373-375. 

Hal'i-car-nas'sus, mausoleum at, 212. 

Ha-mil'car, 283, 286, 287. 

Hamites, 4, 46. 

Hanging gardens, 83. 

Han'ni-bal, his vow, 288 ; attacks 
Saguntum, 288 ; crosses the Pyr- 
enees, 289 ; crosses the Alps, 291 ; 
his policy in Italy, 291 ; before 
Rome, 296 ; defeated at Za'ma, 
299 ; his death, 302. 

Han'no, Carthaginian admiral, 283, 
286. 

Ha-rus'pi-ces, art of the, 249. 

Has'dru-bal, Hannibal's brother, 297, 
298. 



478 



INDEX. 



Has'dru-bal, son-in-law of Hamilcar, 
287. 

Hebrews, in Egypt, 21, 88; patri- 
archal age, 87, 88 ; exodus, 90, 91 ; 
conquest of Palestine, 91 ; the 
judges, 92 ; monarchy founded, 93 ; 
division of kingdom, 96 ; close of 
the political life of, 98 ; religion 
and literature, 98, 99 ; chronology 
of judges and kings, 100. 

Hel'las, the name, 128. 

Hel-le'nes, 130, 134. 

Hel'les-pont, 153, 154. 

He'lots, 137, 167, 172. 

Helvetians, 336. 

Her'a-cle'a, battle of, 268. 

Heralds, college of, at Rome, 251. 

Her'cu-la'ne-um, 370. 

Her'cu-les, 130. 

Her'mann (see Arminius). 

He-rod'o-tus, 223. 

Heroes, Grecian, 130. 

Heroic Age in Greece, 131. 

Her'u-li, 410. 

He'si-od, 220. 

Hez'e-ki'ah, 61, 75. 

Hi'e-ro, king of Syracuse, 274, 275, 

295- 

Hi'e-ro-glyph'ics, Egyptian, 40, 41. 

Hindus, ancestors of, 7. 

Hip-par'chus, 149. 

Hip'pi-as, 149, 150. 

Hip'po, 105. 

Hi'ram, king of Tyre, 95, 102, 107. 

History, definition of, I ; divisions 

of, 1. 
Hit'tites, 18. 
Homer, 219. 
Ho-no'ri-us, Roman emperor, 398, 

400,401, 402. 
Horace, 451. 
Hor-ten'si-us, 455. 
Ho'rus, 28. 

Hun-ga'ri-ans, 4, n. 407. 
Huns, 4, 395, 405, n. 407. 
Hyk'sos, 18. 
Hy-met'tus, 127. 



I. 

I-be'ri-ans, 4. 

Il'i-ad, 219. 

Il'i-os (see Troy). 

Il-lyr'i-an corsairs, 285. 

Ionian cities in Asia Minor, 114, 150. 

Ionian islands, 127. 

Ionians, 130, 135. 

Ip-sam-bul', 36. 

I'sis, 28. 

Israel, captivity of, 60, 97 ; kingdom 
of, 96 ; chronology of, 100. 

Israelites (see Hebrews). 

Is'sus, battle of, 181. 

Italians, 240. 

Italy, divisions of, 239 ; early inhab- 
itants of, 240. 

Ith'a-ca, island of, 128. 

J- 

Ja'nus, Temple of, 357. 

Jericho, 91. 

Jer'o-bo'am, 96. 

Jerome, 466. 

Jerusalem, 77, 94, 368, 374. 

Joseph, 88. 

Josephus, the historian, 99. 

Jovian, Roman emperor, 392. 

Judah, captivity of, 77, 97 ; kingdom 

of, 97 ; chronology of kings, 100. 
Judges of Israel, 92. 
Ju-gur'tha, war with, 313-315. 
Julian the Apostate, 390-392. 
Ju-li-a'nus, Did'i-us, 381. 
Jus-tin'i-an, emperor, 467, 468, 469. 
Justin Martyr, 376. 
Ju've-nal, 453. 

K. 

Kar'nak, Temple of, 20, 36. 
Kor-sa-bad', 60, 69. 
Ko-yun'jik, 67. 
Ku'dur-na-khun'ta, 48. 

L. 

La'bas-so-ra'cus, 78. 
Lac'e-dae'mon, 126. 



INDEX. 



479 



Lac'e-dae-mo'ni-ans (see Spartans). 
La-co'ni-a, 126. 
La-oc'o-on group, 216. 
Lapps, 4. 

Latin cities, revolt of, 265. 
colonies, n. 270. 
language, spread of, 438 ; used 
by early Christian writers,465. 
La f ins, 240, 241. 
La'ti-um, 239, 241. 
Layard, excavations by, 69. 
Lebanon, cedars of, 102. 
Lenormant (leh'-nor'-mon'), views of, 

on alphabetical writing, 106. 
Le-on'i-das, 156. 
Lep'i-dus, 347, 350. 
Les'bos, island of, 127. 
Leuc'tra, battle of, 176. 
Lib'y-ans, 287. 
Li-gu'ri-a, 239. 
Lil'y-bae'um, 281, 282. 
Literature, Assyrian, 69, 70. 

Chaldoean, 54. 

Egyptian, 41. 

Grecian, 219-238. 

Hebrew, 98, 99. 

Persian, 121. 

Roman, 435-471. 
Liv'i-us, M., consul, 298. 
Livy, the historian, 458. 
Lon-gi'nus, 385. 
Longus, L. Sempronius, 290. 
Lu'can, 367, ft. 453. 
Lu-ca'-ni-a, 239. 
Luc'ca, 338. 
Lu-cil'i-us, 445. 
Lu-cre'ti-us, 446. 
Lu-cul'lus, the consul, 331. 
Lu'-si-ta'ni-ans, 306, 326. 
Ly-cur'gus, 137, 138. 
Ly'cus, battle of, 331. 
Ly -san'der, 173. 
Ly-sim'a-chus, 188. 
Ly-sip'pus, 215. 

M. 

Mac-ca-bae'us, Judas, 190. 



Macedonia, 178, 189. 
Macedonian empire, states formed 
from, 188. 
phalanx, 178. 
Ma-cri'nus, Roman emperor, 383. 
Magi, 122. 
Ma'gi-an-ism, 123. 
Magna Graecia, 135, 239. 
Mag-ne'si-a, 301, 
Ma-har'bal, 294. 
Mam'er-tines, 274. 
Man'e-tho, 15. 
Manlius, 263. 
Man-ti-ne'a, battle of, 176. 
Mar'a-thon, battle of, 151, 152. 
Mar-cel'lus, 295. 

Mar-cel'lus, nephew of Augustus, 358. 
Mar-do'nius, 115, 150, 158. 
Mariette (ma-re'-et), 31. 
Ma'ri-us, Ca'i-us (ka'yus), 315, 320- 

322. 
Marsic War, 317. 
Martial, 453. 

Mas'i-nis'sa, king of Numidia, 304. 
Mas-sil'i-a, 135, 341. 
Mat'ta-thi'as, 190. 
Mau-solus, 212. 

Max-im'i-an, emperor, 386, 388. 
Max'i-min, 384. 
Medes, 108. 
Memnon, Vocal, 20. 
Memphis, 17. 
Me'nes, 16. 

Me-ro'dach-Bal'a-dan, 75. 
Mes'sa-li'na, 365. 
Mes-se'ni-a, 126. 
Mes-se'ni-an wars, 142. 
Mes-si'na, founding of, 143. 
Me-tau'rus, battle of, 298. 
Military roads, Roman, 425-427. 
Mil-ti'a-des, 115, 151. 
Mi-nu'ci-us, co-dictator with Fabius, 

293- 
Mith'ri-da'tes the Great, 193, 319, 

33°,33i- 

Mit'y-le-ne'ans, 171. 

Moses, 89-91. 



480 



INDEX. 



Myc'a-le, battle of, 158. 

N. 
Nab-o-na'di-us, 78-80. 
Nab-o-nas'sar, 75. 
Nab-o-po-las'sar, 62, 75, 76. 
Nae'vi-us, 443. 

Neb'u-chad-nez'zar, 76, JJ, 78, 83. 
Ne'cho II., 23. 
Ne'pos, Cornelius, n. 457. 
Ner-e-glis'sar, 78. 
Nero, C. Claudius, consu], 298. 
Nero, Roman emperor, 366-368. 
Nerva, Roman emperor, 371. 
Ni-cae'a, 389. 
Ni'ger, 381. 
Nile, deposits of, 13 ; delta of, 13 ; 

valley of, n. 13 ; inundation of, 14; 

cataracts of, 15. 
Nimrod, 47. 
Nineveh, 60, 62, 67, 69. 
Nu-man'ti-a, 306. 

O. 
Oc-ta'vi-us, 347 ; enters Second Tri- 
umvirate, 348 ; divides the world 
with Antony, 349 ; defeats Anto- 
ny at battle of Actium, 352 ; reign 

of, 355-359- 
Od'e-na'tus, 385. 
Od'o-a'cer, 410. 
Olympian Council, 199. 
games, 203. 
Jove, statue of, 214. 
Olympus, Mount, 126, 127. 
Op'ti-mates, 311. 
Oracles, 200, 201, 249. 
O-res'tes, 410. 
Or'mazd, 121, 122. 
O-si'ris, 28, n. 29. 
Os'sa, Mount, 126, 127. 
Os'tra-cism, 149 ; of Aristides, 164 ; 

of Themistocles, 164 ; of Cimon, 

167. 
Os'tro-goths, 396, 397. 
O'tho, Roman emperor, 36S. 
Ov'id, 451. 



P. 

Painting, Grecian, 216-218. 
Palace-mounds of Assyrians, 67 ; of 

Babylonians, 83 ; of Persians, 124. 
Pal'i-nu'rus, loss of Roman fleet off 

promontory of, 279. 
Palmyra, 95, 385. 
Pandects, 468. 
Pa'nor-mus, battle of, 279. 
Pan'the-on, 415,416. 
Pa-pin'i-an, 382, 467. 
Pa-py'rus paper, 40. 
Par-nas'sus, 127. 

Par-rha'si-us (par-ra-shi-us), 218. 
Par'the-non, 211. 
Parthians, 376, n. 391. 
Patricians, 244. 

Pau-sa'ni-as, king of Sparta, 165. 
Pe-las'gi-ans, 129 ; architecture of, 

208 ; in Italy, 240. 
Pe'li-on, Mount, 127. 
Pe-lop'i-das, 176. 
Pel'o-pon-ne'sian (-zhan) War, 170- 

173- 
Pel'o-pon-ne'sus, divisions of, 126. 
Pe'lops, 130. 

Pen-tel'i-cus, Mount, 127. 
Per'ga-mus, 188, 192, 301. 
Per'i-cles, 168, 171, 225. 
Per-sep'o-lis, 80, 124, 125. 
Per'seus, king of Macedonia, 301. 
Persian Empire, founded by Cyrus, 

109 ; decline of, 1 16, 1 1 7 ; table of 

kings, 119; nature of government, 

120. 
Persians, ancestors of, 7 ; literature 

and religion, 121-123 ; architecture 

of, 124. 
Per'ti-nax, Roman emperor, 380. 
Phse'drus, 465. 
Pharaoh-Necho, 76, 107. 
Pharaohs (fa'roz), last of, 24. 
Phar'na-ces, 331, 343. 
Phar-sa'li-a, battle of, 342. 
Phid'i-as, 213. 
Phi'lae, island of, 15. 
Philip, Roman emperor, 384. 



INDEX. 



481 



Philip of Macedon, 178, 179. 

Phi-lip'pi, battle of, 349. 

Phi'lo, 99. 

Pho'cis, 126. 

Phce-nic'i-a, 101 ; products of, 102 ; 
cities of, 102 ; influence of country 
upon inhabitants, 103. 

Phoenicians, early migrations of, 5, 
10 1 ; ethnic character of, 6, 101 ; 
commerce of, 103 ; their colonies, 
104 ; their routes of trade, 105 ; 
disseminators of alphabet, 105 ; 
enterprises aided by, 107. 

Picts, 405. 

Pirates, defeated by Pompey, 329. 

Pi-sis'tra-tus, 148. 

Pla-cen'ti-a, 286. 

Pla-tae'a, battle of, 158. 

Plataeans, 151, 172. 

Plato, 231. 

Plau'tus, 444. 

Plebeians (ple-be'yans), 244 ; first se- 
cession of, 253 ; admitted to the 
consulship, 264. 

Pliny the Elder, 462 ; the Younger, 

463- 

Plu'tarch, 373. 

Poles, 8. 

Pol'y-carp, 376. 

Pol'yg-no'tus, 217. 

Pompeii (pom-pe'yi), 370. 

Pompey, Sextius, 350. 

Pompey the Great in Spain, 326 ; 
defeats gladiators, 328 ; defeats pi- 
rates, 329; conducts the Mithri- 
datic war, 330; conquers Syria, 33 1 ; 
his triumph, 332 ; mode of organ- 
izing provinces, 334 ; enters the 
triutnvirate, 335 ; receives the gov- 
ernment of Spain, 338 ; seeks pop- 
ularity, 339 ; flees before Caesar 
into Greece, 340 ; defeated at Phar- 
salia, 342 ; his death, 342. 

Pom-po'ni-us, Roman jurist, 467. 

Pontiffs, college of, at Rome, 251. 

Pon'tine marshes, 344. 

Pon'ti-us, Ga'vi-us, 267. 



Pontus, 188, 193. 
Por'tus Ro-ma'nus, 365. 
Po'rus, Indian prince, 181. 
Prae-to'ri-an guard, formation of, 359 ; 

disbanded by Severus, 381. 
Prax-it'e-les, 214. 
Pro-tog'e-nes, 217. 
Province, first Roman, 284. 
Psam-men'i-tus, 24. 
Psam'me-tik I., 21, 23. 
Pseu'do-Smer'dis, 112. 
Ptol'e-my Claudius, the astronomer, 
238. 

I., Soter, 190. 

II., Philadelphia, 191. 

III., Eu-er'ge-tes, 192. 
Public lands in Italy, 309, 312. 
Punic War, first, 273-283. 

second, 289-299. 
third, 303-306. 
Pyd'na, battle of, 301. 
Pyramid Kings, 17. 
Pyramids, 17, 34. 
Pyr'rhus, 268, 269, n. 270. 
Py-thag'o-ras, 228. 

Q- 

Quin-til'i-an, the rhetorician, 464. 

R. 

Races of mankind, 2, 3 ; table of, 

showing families, 12. 
Rad-a-gai'sus, 400. 
Ra-me'ses II., 20, 36, 37. 
Ram-es-se'um, 37. 
Ram'nes, 241. 
Reg'u-lus, 278, 280. 
Re-ho-b5'am, king of Judah, 96. 
Religion, Aryan, 10. 

Assyrian, 65. 

Chaldaean, 50. 

Egyptian, 28-34. 

Grecian, 197-207. 

Hebrew, 98, 99. 

Persian, 121-124. 

Roman, 248, 252. 
Rhe'nus, river, 348. 



482 



INDEX. 



Rhodes, island of, 127 ; colossus at, 
215 ; schools of, 216. 

Roman Empire, extent of, under Au- 
gustus, 356; sale of, 380; final di- 
vision of, 398 ; Eastern, 398 ; clos- 
ing history of Western, 398-410; 
military roads of, 425. 

Rome, location of, 241 ; history com- 
pared with that of Sparta, 241 ; 
founding of, 242 ; hills of, 242 ; 
first conquest by, 242 ; becomes 
leading city of Latium, 242, 243 ; 
causes of rapid growth, n. 243 ; 
classes of society during regal pe- 

. riod, 244 ; early government, 245 ; 
kings of, 246-248 ; religion, 248- 
252 ; sacked by the Gauls, 260 ; 
public lands 0^309-312; popula- 
tion of, 357 ; last triumph at, 399 ; 
ransom of, 400-402 ; sack of, by 
Alaric, 402, 403 ; sack of, by the 
Vandals, 408. 

Ros'trum, Roman, n. 244. 

Rox-a'na,vvife of Alexander the Great, 

183. 
Ru'bi-con, Caesar crosses, 339. 
Ru-pil'i-us, Pub'li-us, 309. 
Russians, ethnic relations, 8. 



Sabines, 242. 
Sa-gun'tum, 288. 
Sal'a-mis, battle of, 116, 158. 
Sal'lust, 457. 
Samaritans, origin of, 97. 
Samnite War, first, 265. 

second, 266. 

third, 267. 
Sam'ni-um, 239. 
Sa'por, king of Persia, 391. 
Sap'pho (saf'fo), 221. 
Sar'a-cus, 62. 
Sar-din'i-a, 284. 
Sar'dis, 114. 
Sar'gon, 60. 
Sa'traps, Persian, 120. 
Saul, king of Hebrews, 193. 



Saxons, 394. 
Scar-a-bas'us, 30. 
Scipio Africanus Minor, 307. 
Asiaticus, 301. 

Publius Cornelius (Africanus 
Major), 290, 297, 299, 302. 
Scone, stone of, n. 10. 
Sculpture, Assyrian, 68, 69, 72. 

Egyptian, 37. 

Grecian, 212-216. 

Persian, 125. 
Se-ja'nus, 361. 
Sel'eu-ci'a, city of, 189. 
Se-leu'ci-dae, kingdom of the, 189. 
Se-leu'cus, Ni-ca'tor, 189. 
Se-mir'a-mis, 59. 
Semitic nations, 5, 6. 
Sen'e-ca, 366, 461. 
Sen-nach'e-rib, 60, 68, 69. 
Ser-to'ri-us, 326. 
Servians, 8. 

Servile Wars in Sicily, 308, n. 309. 
Ser'vi-us Tul'li-us, 247. 
Se-sos'tris the Great, 20. 
Seven Sages, 228. 
Se-ve'rus, Alexander, 384. 

Sep-tim'i-us, 381-382. 
Shal-ma-ne'ser II., 59. 
She'ba, Queen of, 95. 
Shepherd Kings, 18, 19, 101. 
Sicily, island of, 239, 273 ; Servile 

Wars in, 308,309. 
Si'don, 102. 

Sil'a-rus, defeat of gladiators at, 328. 
Si-lu'res, 365. 
Slavery, Roman, 308, 309. 
Slavonians, migrations of, 8. 
Social War in Italy, 317. 
So'ci-i, relations to Roman govern- 
ment, 317, 318. 
Socrates, 173, 230. 
Sog'di-an Rock, 183. 
Sog'di-a'na, 183. 
Solomon, king of Hebrews, 94. 
So'lon, laws of, 146. 
Soph'o-cles, 221. 
So'phi'a, St., Church of, 390. 



INDEX. 



483 



Spain, civil war in, 326. 

Sparta, 126; early history of, 136; 
Senate, 138 ; leader among Gre- 
cian states, 173. 

Spar'ta-cus, 326. 

Spartans, situation as conquerors in 
Lacedaemon, 136 ; laws of, 138-141. 

Sphinx, Egyptian, 17, 38. 

Spor'a-des, 127. *■ 

Sta'ti-us, n. 453. 

Stiff- cho, 399-401. 

Stoics, doctrines of the, 234. 

Stra'bo, 238. 

Sue-to'ni-us, 460. 

Sue'vi, 336, 400, 405. 

Sulla, fights under Marius in Africa, 
315; secures command of Mithri- 
datic expedition, 320 ; brings war 
to a close, 322 ; return to Rome, 
323 ; his proscriptions, 323 ; his 
death, 324. 

Su'phis I., king of Egypt, 17. 

Su'sa, 48. 

Syr'a-cuse, 295. 

T. 

Table of Races, 12 ; of Hebrew 
judges and kings, 100 ; of Assyr- 
ian kings, 86 ;" of Babylonian rulers, 
86 ; of Chaldaean kings, 86 ; of 
kings of Egypt, 25 ; of kings of 
Media and Persia, 119; of the 
Ptolemies, 196 ; of the Roman 
kings and emperors, 252, 354, 378 ; 
of the Seleucidae, 196. 

Tablets, Assyrian, 53 ; Babylonian, 
n. 84 ; Chaldaean, 53. 

Tac'i-tus, the historian, 458, 459.. 

Tad'mor (see Palmyra). 

Tal'mud, 99. 

Ta-ren'tum, 268, 270. 

Tar-pe'i-an Rock, 264. 

Tel'a-mon, battle near, 286. 

Tem'pe, Vale of, 126. 

Ten Thousand, expedition of the, 

173- 
Terence, 444. 



Teu'to-nes, defeated by Marius, 315, 
316. 

Thap'sus, battle of, 343. 

Theatres, Roman, 418. 

Theba-id, 15. 

Thebes, Egyptian, 20, 25. 
Grecian, 104, 176. 

The-mis'to-cles, 158, 161. 

The-od'o-ric the Ostrogoth, 470. 

The'o-do'si-us the Great, 397, 398. 

Thermae, Roman, 428-430. 

Ther-mop'y-la?, Pass of, 156 ; battle 
of, 156. 

Theseus, 144, 167. 

Thes'sa-lo-ni'ca, 340. 

Thes'sa-ly, 126. 

Thirty Tyrants, Age of the, 384. 

Thoth'mes III., 20. 

Thrace, 188. 

Thu-cyd'i-des (thu-sid'i-dez), 223. 

Ti-be'ri-us, Roman emperor, 358, 
359-362. 

Ti-bul'lus, 452. 

Ti-ci'nus, battle of the, 290. 

Tig'lath-i-Nin', 46, 75. 

Tig'lath-pi-le'ser I., 56. 

Ti'gris, basin of the, 45. 

Ti'tus, captures Jerusalem, 368, 369; 
reign of, 369, 370 ; Arch of, 432. 

Trajan, Roman emperor, 372, 373. 

Tras-i-me'nus, Lake, battle of, 290. 

Tre'bi-a, battle of, 290. 
Tri-bo'ni-an, Roman jurist, 468. 
Tribunes, Roman, 254, 259. 
Triumph, the Roman, 432, 433. 
Tri-um'vi-rate, First, 335 ; renewed, 

338 ; Second, 347. 
Trojan War, 132, 133. 
Troy, 132. 

Truceless War, 286. 
Turanians, 3, 4. 
Turks, 4. 

Twelve tables of Roman law,257,467. 
Ty'phon, 29. 
Tyre, 77, 102, 103, 181. 
Tyrian purple, 102. 
Tyr-tae'us, 142. 



4 8 4 



INDEX. 



U. 
Umbri-a, 239. 

Urukh, king of Chaldaea, 48. 
Utica, 105, 305, 306. 

V. 

Vadi-moni-an Lake, defeat of Etrus- 
cans at, 266. 
Va'lens, Roman emperor, 393, 395- 

397- 
Val'en-tin i-an, Roman emperor, 393— 

395- 

Va-le'ri-us, Pub'li-us, 253. 

Vandals, 400, 405, 408. 

Var'ro, 460. 

Va'rus, defeated by Hermann, 358. 

Ve'i-i (ve'yi), siege of, 260. 

Ven'di-dad, 121. 

Ven'e-ti, 336, 407. 

Ve-ne'ti-a, 239. 

Ver-cel'lae, battle 0^317. 

Ver'cin-get'o-rix, 337. 

Ver'res, abuses of, 328. 

Vespasian ( ves-pa'zhi-an ), Roman 

emperor, 368, 369. 
Ves'ta, fires of, 249. 
Ve-su'vi-us, battle of, 266. 
Vesuvius, Mount, 370. 
Villas, Roman, 430. 
Vin'do-bo'na, 377. 
Virgil, 448-450- 



Vir'i-a'thus, 307. 
Vis'i-goths, 395-397. 405- 
Vi-tel'li-us, Roman emperor, 368. 
Vocal Memnon, 20, 38. 
Volscians, 256. 
Vul-Lush III., 59. 
Vul'so, L. Man'li-us, 278. 

W. 
Welsh, of Celtic origin, 8, n. II. 
Writing, Assyrian, 70. 

Chaldaean, 52. 

Egyptian, 40. 

Phoenician, 105, 106. 

X. 

Xan-thip'pus, 279. 
Xen'o-phon, 174, 224. 
Xerxes (zerks'ez) L, king of Persia, 
115, 152-158; II., 116. 

Z. 

Za'ma, battle of, 299. 
Zede-ki'ah, 77. 
Ze'la, battle of, 343. 
Zend'a-ves'ta, 121. 
Ze'no, 233. 

Zeuxis (zuks iss), 218. 
Ze-no'bi-a, 385. 
Zo-ro-as'ter, 7. 
Zoroastrianism, 121-123. 



— .P 



